Industry & research
Educational
apartheid?
Private school-educated scholars denounce
old boys’ and girls’ clubs.
By Loren Smith
M
ost future wealth – at least in Western nations – will be
inherited, but billionaires still put their children in the best
position to grow their fortunes by enrolling them in private
or elite public schools.
Bill Gates sent his three children to Lakeside School – the same
private Seattle institution he attended. Or, if they’re eccentric like
Elon Musk and perhaps want their kids to become self-made
titans, they might even create their own school for their children.
In sum, for the very wealthy, and even the upper-middle class, a
conventional education for their offspring often doesn’t suffice.
This has consequences for the rest of society, in that it perpetuates
unequal conditions. Francis Green and David Kynaston have written
a book in the hope of helping rectify this. In Engines of Privilege:
Britain’s Private School Problem, the professor of work and education
economics at the University College London Institute of Education,
and the historian and visiting professor at Kingston University, say that
“there is an irrefutable link between private schools and life’s gilded
path: private school to top university to top career”.
In their view, private schools create an “educational apartheid”,
despite existing “in a society that mouths the virtues of equality of
opportunity, of fairness and of social cohesion”.
In addition to criticising the status quo, the authors, both of whom
were privately educated, offer solutions to it. Presenting the book at
the London School of Economics’ International Inequalities Institute,
Kynaston highlighted that it was borne out of frustration about inaction
on the subject. He acknowledged, however, that the “plates are
possibly shifting in an anti-privilege direction”.
THE GILDED PIPELINE
Depending on who you believe, unlike in Australia, in the UK there
is a vastly disproportionate amount of spending on private schools.
A sixth of public funding for schools is directed to them, despite
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only 6–7 per cent of students attending them. This means, Green
said, that private schools receive 300 per cent more funding than
public schools.
Also dissimilar to Australia, in the UK, studies have shown that
students who attend private schools perform better academically
than their public school peers, controlling for all factors, including
socioeconomic status. This is not only patently inequitable, private
schools have a pipeline effect, whereby their students are twice as
likely to attend higher-ranked universities like Oxford, Cambridge or
Russell Group members, and be paid more and progress further up
career ladders.
Green provided examples. Private school-educated 25-year-olds
enjoy an estimated 17 per cent wage premium, which increases as
they age. In 2016, a third of MPs and CEOs of the top 100 companies
had attended private schools. Three-quarters of judges and generals,
and 40 per cent of the ‘500 most influential people in Britain’ also
shared this privilege.
He preemptively addressed a counter argument offered by private
school advocates: bursaries. “Only 4 per cent of private schools’ total
turnover goes into them, and only 1 per cent of students attend them
for free,” he said.
EFFECT ON THE 93 PER CENT
Kynaston outlined three major effects of the gilded pipeline. The first,
‘systemic inefficiency’, involves a wasteful allocation of resources.
For instance, he termed as “sheer extravagance” a situation in which
a private school has 20 playing fields and a nearby public school has
only one. This is not necessarily hypothetical: an actor friend of his
recently performed at a private school in Kent. When he arrived at the
gates and asked the security guard for directions to the theatre, the
guard replied: “Which one?”
Echoing Green’s earlier remark, Kynaston further noted the
‘positional effect’ of private schooling. “It moves you up the ranks,”
the Wellington College alumnus said. “It is education of a private,
not broader, social value.”
Then, as prefaced by Green, there is the effect of private schooling
on representative democracy – the ‘democratic deficit’. When every
minister in the education ministry is privately educated, as was the case
until 2014, it arguably undermines the ‘representative’ element.
Above all, Kynaston argues that the provision of private schooling is
unfair. He shares this view with 63 per cent of people, according to the
results of a representative poll he and Green commissioned.
A FAIRER WAY FORWARD?
The authors believe these issues can be addressed under a ‘fair access
scheme’, which would mandate that a third of private school students
come from public schools. They argue this proportion should be
increased over time, leading to a “game-changing” outcome.
“Private schools wouldn’t be a few working-class kids struggling to
find their way among toffs,” Green said.
This idea is hardly pie in the sky, Kynaston added. Finland abolished
private schools in the 1970s, to impressive, albeit arguably uniquely
Finnish academic outcomes.
Reflecting social democratic ideals, he said it is fundamentally about
balancing liberty and equality.
“Education is different in kind from other purchases. Unlike a house
or a car, it helps to determine the shape of society,” he said. “In this
case, equity for the 93 per cent outweighs liberty for the 7 per cent.
“If politicians have the nerve and the vision, there is backing for it.” ■