The idea that private school is the sole preserve of the wealthy elite whose pockets the Government can pick for their 20% tax, Robin Hood-style, is garbage, says Mirror columnist Darren Lewis
MY SON is a strapping, confident 18-year-old in his second year of A-levels. As an eight-year-old, however, we removed him from his primary school because of the shambolic behaviour in his chaotic, oversized class.
We’d spoken several times to his school to make our feelings known, only to be met with mealy-mouthed nonsense around taking our concerns seriously. There was zero action.
In the end we had enough. After a brief spell educating him at home, we placed him into a private school for the final 18 months of his education before his switch to a state secondary school.
Could we afford it? Of course not. The sacrifices we had to make were many. But he was a young Black child in a system disadvantaged against young Black children. So I can understand why parents of any background with kids at private school would be angry at the VAT now being added to school fees after new rules came into force on January 1. The Government accuses critics of the policy of not living in the real world.
Actually, it is the other way around. Parents who work extra jobs to improve their kids’ education don’t have the luxury of waiting for the Government’s plans to supercharge failing state schools (don’t hold your breath) to come to fruition.
Working class and children of colour are being hindered in failing state schools that are unable to adequately address bullying, bad behaviour and a lack of respect for authority.
One uncompromising female friend of mine refused to countenance sending her kids to state school for the entirety of their education. When I asked her why, she pointed to the facts.
Statistics already show that Black children from state schools in the UK tend to have have lower GCSE results than their private school peers.
In 2016, the Department for Education found that Black Caribbean children were three and a half times more likely to be excluded than all other children. A whole host of schools have teaching staff who have never interacted with Black families before – and yet fail to understand why that problem impacts the child’s academic performance.
Parents who can do something about it don’t want to sit on their hands while their kids suffer.
Why should they be penalised?
The idea that private school is the sole preserve of the wealthy elite whose pockets the Government can pick for their 20% tax, Robin Hood-style, is garbage. Long before chancellor Rachel Reeves’ announcement last year, parents around the country had been routinely taking their kids out of state schools to educate them either privately or at home.
They want smaller class sizes, well-disciplined pupils and motivated teachers able to devote the time to their little ones that they should.
Parents want to give their children a chance. Black graduates have the lowest employment rates of any ethnic group. You only have to look across business, media, industry, sport and a variety of other sectors to see for yourself.
According to the latest annual survey by the Independent Schools Council, four out of 10 private school pupils come from a minority ethnic background.
But the landmark Black British Voices Project published in October 2023 by The Voice, Cambridge University and the consultancy I-Cubed, found a staggering 94% of respondents fear Black children suffer from lower educational attainment expectations from educators compared to their White counterparts.
That gap will widen as VAT forces parents to switch their kids back to state schools.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had a brief taste of what dissent from traditional voters, taken for granted, would look like at the ballot box as his party’s Middle East policy cost him a few big seats at last year’s election.
Voters now forced to surrender their kids to shambolic, failing state schools will have memories just as long.
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Cons:
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