Abolish Eton: Labour groups aim to strip elite schools of
privileges
Labour Against Private Schools is launching motion ahead of
September party conference
Richard Adams Education editor
Tue 9 Jul 2019 06.05 BST Last modified on Tue 9 Jul 2019
12.33 BST
If Boris Johnson becomes prime minister, he would be the
second Old Etonian to hold the position within four years, the promoters of the
campaign say. Photograph: Grant Rooney/Alamy
Labour activists are aiming to capitalise on Boris Johnson’s
likely election as Conservative leader with an aggressive campaign against his
old school, Eton, and other elite private schools in England.
The group, Labour Against Private Schools, is circulating a
motion for the party’s conference in September that would commit a Labour
government to stripping fee-paying schools of their privileges and integrating
them into the state system.
The campaign is to be publicly launched on Tuesday using the
@AbolishEton Twitter handle, and is backed by a number of Labour MPs including the
former party leader Ed Miliband.
Those behind the campaign say Johnson’s elevation means he
will be the second Old Etonian to be prime minister within four years, while
Jeremy Hunt was educated at Charterhouse and the Brexit party leader, Nigel
Farage, went to Dulwich College – proof that private schools remain a powerful
force in British politics.
Holly Rigby, a state school teacher and coordinator of the
campaign, said: “There is no justification for the fact that young people’s
opportunity to flourish and fulfil their potential is still determined by the
size of their parents’ bank balance.”
A research by the Sutton Trust and the social mobility
commission found that more than half of Britain’s senior judges, top civil
servants and Foreign Office diplomats were privately educated, as well as
substantial numbers in the media, arts and sports.
Rigby said previous Labour governments had squandered their
opportunities to tackle the class divisions in the education system. “It’s
about time we finished the job,” she said.
The campaign against private schools claims support from MPs
across the parliamentary Labour party, including the shadow Treasury minister,
Clive Lewis, and the former teachers Thelma Walker and Laura Smith.
“Private schools are anachronistic engines of privilege that
simply have no place in the 21st century,” said Lewis. “We cannot claim to have
an education system that is socially just when children in private schools
continue to have 300% more spent on their education than children in state
schools.”
Annual fees to attend Eton, a boarding school, are £40,000,
while fees for day pupils at Westminster school are close to £29,000 a year.
The group plans to circulate its motion to local
constituency Labour parties and win their backing for it to be adopted at the
national conference in Brighton later this year. If adopted, the motion’s
proposals would be included in Labour’s next general election manifesto.
While Labour’s current policies include adding VAT to school
fees, the motion urges Labour to “go further to challenge the elite privilege
of private schools and break up the establishment network that dominates the
top professions”.
The motion calls for an election commitment to “integrate
all private schools into the state sector”, including the withdrawal of
charitable status.
It also breaks new ground by wanting to limit university
admissions to “the same proportion of private school students as in the wider
population (currently 7%)”. Most radically. it also calls for the “endowments,
investments and properties held by private schools to be redistributed democratically
across the country’s educational institutions”.
Such a programme would face significant legal obstacles, and
the proposals make no mention of the hundreds of private schools catering to
pupils with special needs or alternative provision, or small faith schools,
with none of the resources enjoyed by prestigious schools such as Westminster.
Mike Buchanan, executive director of the Headmasters’ and
Headmistresses’ Conference representing public schools, said independent
schools played “a vital role” in the nation’s education system, and would cost
taxpayers billions of pounds to replace.
“These excellent schools are creating life-changing free
places for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and expanding daily their
mutually beneficial partnerships with state schools.
“I invite politicians of any party to talk with me about how
we can do even more together to extend such opportunities across the country
and, in particular, to the most disadvantaged,” Buchanan said.
The last Labour government lost a legal challenge over the
charitable status of fee-paying private schools, but the issue was reignited by
Theresa May’s government in a 2016 education green paper, although that attempt
was later abandoned.
The motion’s proposals would only apply to schools in
England. In Scotland, the SNP government has already removed the entitlement
for private schools to pay reduced business rates.
Eton and Westminster among eight schools dominating Oxbridge
This article is more
than 6 months old
Research shows pupils from state sector less likely to apply
than privately educated peers
Sally Weale Education correspondent
Fri 7 Dec 2018 00.01 GMT Last modified on Fri 7 Dec 2018
12.16 GMT
Eton sends 60 to 100 students to Oxbridge each year.
Eight top schools in the UK get as many pupils into the
universities of Oxford and Cambridge as three-quarters of all schools and
colleges together, according to new research.
Over a three-year period the eight leading schools – which
are mainly in the independent sector – sent 1,310 of their students to
Oxbridge, while 2,900 schools, each with two or fewer acceptances, sent 1,220
pupils in total.
The research showed that high-flying pupils from state
schools were far less likely to apply to Oxbridge than their peers in the
private sector, and were less likely to be successful when they did apply.
Of the top fifth highest achieving schools almost a quarter
(23%) of students in the independent sector applied to Oxbridge, compared with
11% of comprehensive students in the same group. Of those who applied 35% from
independent schools were successful and 28% from comprehensives.
Oxbridge needs to
guarantee places for the best state school pupils
Owen Jones
Overall, just over one in five (21%) university applications
from pupils at private schools are for Oxbridge, compared to 5% at comprehensives
and 4% at sixth-form colleges. There are also far higher rates of Oxbridge
application at selective schools – 16% of all grammar school applications are
to either Oxford or Cambridge.
Researchers, using data gathered by the Universities and
Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas), found that students who attended a private
school were seven times more likely to win a place at Oxford or Cambridge than
those in non-selective state schools.
They were also more than twice as likely to go to a Russell
Group university. Six of 10 private school students who were in higher
education were at a Russell Group university, compared with just under a
quarter of pupils from comprehensives and sixth-form colleges.
The Access to Advantage study by the Sutton Trust, a charity
promoting social mobility through education, analysed university applications
and acceptance rates for three years starting in 2015, looking at the type of
school pupils attended and the regions where they lived.
The results revealed disparities between regions, with about
6% of those applying to university in the south of England winning a place at
Oxbridge, compared with 3-4% of those from the north or the Midlands. In some
areas, including Rochdale, Rutland, Salford, Lincolnshire and Southampton, two
or fewer comprehensive pupils got into Oxbridge over the three-year period.
According to the report, one of the reasons a tiny number of
schools continue to dominate Oxbridge admissions is the high level of
additional, specialist, support for pupils, which cannot be matched in the
state sector.
At Westminster school, which sends 70 to 80 students to
Oxbridge each year, pupils are given personalised mentoring and university
preparation classes.
At Eton, which sends 60 to 100 students to Oxbridge each
year, a dedicated universities officer is “available at any time during the
A-level years for interviews with boys or parents”. St Paul’s boys’ school
employs 11 specialist UK university advisers – in 2016, 53 of the school’s 189
students who went to university got into either Oxford or Cambridge.
The Sutton Trust is calling for universities to make greater
use of contextual data in their admissions process, including reduced grade
offers, to recognise the different circumstances of applicants. It also says
all pupils should receive professional careers advice to help them make the
best informed choices
Chris Millward, director for fair access and participation
at the universities regulator, the Office for Students, said the Sutton Trust
research highlighted a “‘clear and unacceptable gap in equality of opportunity”
for young people from different school backgrounds and regions.
Matt Waddup, head of policy and campaigns at the University
and College Union, said: “This report demonstrates that many talented
youngsters will never get into some universities simply because nobody is
pushing them to consider applying to them. Universities need to help students
from backgrounds and schools that don’t traditionally apply to some
universities by looking at contextual data.”
1 comment:
"If we cannot have it, then you cannot either!"
Another tired example of the 'have nots' trying to take away something from the 'haves' instead of: 1) busting their own rear ends to gain access through normal channels, or 2) everyone coming to the table and working together to make access and admission to elite schools somewhat more equitable. Didn't we learn anything from 1917-1991?
Not that we have solved the problem in the U.S. by any means where access to elite schools and universities does not necessarily ensure that poor and underprivileged students are ready/able to perform to a high standard. There are exceptions of course, but most struggle in some way, more often in numerous ways. There are simply too many additional extenuating circumstances and factors at play in their personal lives besides the popular view that a few at the top are somehow keeping everyone else down in the dirt.
It is a lot easier to bitch and moan about the rich 1%, as they are called here in the U.S., than it is to take a hard look at oneself and do something (legal) about one's own problems at the grass roots instead of demanding that everyone else fix them from the top down. Stay in school, make the effort, do the work, stay off drugs, don't get sucked into the whirlpool of criminal activity, don't get pregnant or get someone else pregnant. Simple. Of course, parental support (not necessarily the same thing as helicopter parenting) helps.
Likewise, it is a mistake to assume that dismantling elite institutions will somehow make those same problems plaguing the underclasses go away in the blink of an eye. Newsflash! Whatever issues exist today, will still be there in the morning when we wake up whether, or not elite institutions and the private funds to pay for them exist. Frankly, given the abysmal conditions/atmosphere/curriculum of many state run (public) schools, God bless 'em if people can afford to send their children elsewhere.
Best Regards,
Heinz-Ulrich von Boffke
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