More parents go private

Press, 13 May 1987, Page 20

More parents go private

Private schooling in Britain is becoming more expensive and more popular.' Last year fees rose by 11 per cent and the number of pupils by 2.2 per cent, despite a fall in the total schoolage population. Private schools have gained pupils with the phasing out of grammar and direct-grant schools, which left them as the only form of selective education. Over the past eight years, they have increased their share of pupils from 5.8 per cent to nearly 7 per cent. Their recent success has almost certainly been related to parents’ growing unease with the State system, and in particular with the worries caused by a teachers’ dispute. Fears about the quality of

State education in “gentrifying” areas such as inner London have encouraged many parents to look for private schools for their children, even when they themselves went through the State system. The Independent Schools Information Service (1.5.1.5.) estimates that 66 per cent of parents are “first-time buyers” of private education, and says that 20 per cent receive some assistance with fees. Private schools feel under threat from Labour and the Alliance parties, who have been talking about removing their tax concessions and abolishing the Assisted Places Scheme. 1.5.1.5. is a lobby group for private education; it has been mounting a noisy campaign to dispel the image of private schools as the

bastion of the elite, pointing to the diversity of their users and their educational philosophies. It has also been collecting evidence to prove that not just their abolition but also the removal of their charitable status and tax breaks would contravene the European Convention on Human Rights. So far, 1.5.1.5. has not campaigned against the Conservative Government’s plans for new city technology colleges, which would offer free education to the parents of well-motivated and bright children. Yet these may turn out to be a bigger threat to the private-school boom than all the fierce plans of the opposition parties. Copyright — The Economist.