It is fair to say that private and boarding schools are the elite in the education system. Running on the best of everything- being teaching staff, equipment, classes and subjects they offer. Private schools are certainly at the top of the hierarchy.
Now, to some this is brilliant. If they obtain a wealthy, sustainable income and can match the charges and entrance of private schools, their child will most definitely gain a successful education. However, to the vast majority, private schooling is causing huge confidence and discriminatory issues with both children and adults.
Why remove private schools from the education system?
Stereotyping
Private schooling causes a huge fuss between societies- I believe we all can agree, there is most definitely a huge stereotype attached to it.
Removing private school education will have many benefits to the whole format of education, as well as the opinions even children form on the matter, as these are easily inherited from their parents.
The first major benefit we would face from abolishing private schools is the vast decrease in social stereotyping between all age groups. As everyone will be taught within the same style of public education, with one not gaining more than the other, it will entirely cut the whole prospect of ‘ my child is smarter as he/she attends a private school’.
As well as this, it will stop children feeling under-privileged and somewhat dumb or lacking in confidence, as they do not study within a more prestigious education system. As we can all agree, a child already being under-confident as they are just starting their educational journey is very worrying for a parent. They want their child to succeed no matter where they study.
It is not only parents and people of the general public that think the separation of schooling is wrong, hundreds of labour councillors are even backing the campaign to rid the education system of private schools. More than 250 councillors have argued that ‘class segregation of schools is a burning injustice’ and find that stripping them of their privileges and situating them into a state system will create a miraculous difference in schooling altogether.
So far, removing private schooling sounds very beneficial.. doesn’t it?
Learning benefits
Similarly to this, it is found that children gain a lot of ideas and knowledge, from sitting around those of a higher intelligence or experience level to themselves. Therefore, rather than picking the select few of the higher achievers, and placing them in ‘better education’, they could all be placed within a normal class and share their intelligence with others.
Not only will it allow them to teach their friends- ultimately a form of revision and learning for themselves, it will also benefit the rest of the classmates, learning easier ways to take on tasks, or helping them to understand a subject. After all, every child wants to be the smartest in the room, so this competition may be the motivational boost that the children need.
School reputation
Ofsted reports are that of a huge worry to principles and staff, as they want their school to rank as high as possible within their area and obtain test results that put them on the success ladder. So, having the students of a higher intellect ( as we believe they are from studying at a private school) could boost the test success rate of the school, benefitting the targets teachers have to hit as well as the entire school in general.
Why we should keep private schools?
Quality of education
As we all know very well, the attendance and population of a public school can be extremely high, in fact, overpopulated in some cases. Class sizes in a public school can range from about 25-30, with an average of 16:1, teacher-to-student within the school class time. On the other hand, the average amount of students within a private school class is about 10-15 with a much more beneficial teacher-to-student ratio of 12:2.
This is a good benefit of private school education as it allows the students to be focused on a lot more. Even though it is unfair to those that attend a public school, many would argue that it is what they are paying so much money for, better quality education.
Due to the volume of class sizes being so large in public schools, it would be hard to abolish private schools as the students left would only add to the issue, due to needing to find a new public school to attend. This would then decrease even more the student-to-teacher ratio, making the classes suffer that little bit extra- but this could be an upside to hire more teachers per classroom, which would create vacancies for those wanting teaching jobs!
Resources
Unfortunately, many schools do not have the privilege of a disposable funding system and have to really take care of the equipment they have, as they cannot replace it regularly. So, accepting more students into a class would put pressure onto the resources.
Including this, the items they can provide and would force the children to share round bigger group sizes, or the equipment just wouldn’t get used at all, which can interfere with the children learning to the best of their ability. So would it really be beneficial to abolish private school education?
Private school reputation
As well as this, some private schools hold the title of being the best in the world. A name that is extremely hard to uphold for a school. And these are sometimes the forefront of why an area is popular and well known -due to their very successful education system and exceeding students, it helps get the name out. In some cases, having a distinguished boarding/ private school in a slightly under-promoted area, can raise traffic and visitors, which of course increases revenue, benefiting business’ and the town.
Summary
It is an ongoing argument as to whether we should abolish private or boarding schools in order to benefit everyone, as well as the education system. While there are many exceeding advantages, there are some disadvantages that will need to be discussed before anything is put into works…
What do you think; should we rid the system of private schooling altogether? Or keep these prestigious institutions to benefit our more privileged children?