5 Private parts

There has been a flurry of articles over the past month about the significance and proper role of private schooling in the UK. Most of this has been triggered by the recent changes to charity law and the ways in which private schools will have to ‘earn’ their charitable status. This produced a mighty volume of largely predictable words in defence of public schools such as this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=MDHURZQLC4LFZQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/opinion/2008/01/16/dl1601.xml A smaller voice has taken the opportunity to criticise private schooling and argue strongly against their claim to special tax status. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/joan-bakewell/joan-bakewell-theres-nothing-charitable-about-buying-privilege-770918.html you may have noticed that this article includes a swipe at one of the countries leading private school headteachers, Anthony Seldon, who I felt tried to break out of this rather obvious trench warfare by raising a number of important points in a major article in The Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/dr-anthony-seldon-enough-of-this-educational-apartheid-770182.html In my opinion, if private schools can control their annoyance they would be wise to follow this advice and resist the temptation to hunker down and wait for a conservative government. Indeed, for me, the argument about private schools benefiting from tax breaks is a minor discussion, I think the major point made by Anthony Seldon is that the existing situation is one where private schools and the remaining state grammar schools act as a sort of cartel, an apartheid, controlling and limiting advancement and excellence ‘the stranglehold is almost total’. I’m not sure if his solutions will be enough but I think it is a far more interesting discussion than tax liability.