PRIVATE SCHOOLS CHIEF COMPLAINS OF COLD WAR WITH STATE SCHOOLS

Chris Parry, the new Chief Executive of the Independent Schools Council, has claimed that a Cold War had broken out between state and independent schools.

He was giving evidence to a House of Commons Select Committee on the issue of “private schools being forced to open up their facilities to state school pupils or face withdrawal of their charitable tax breaks, which are worth £100 million per annum”

Mr Parry is a former Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy and it showed in his military metaphors! He claimed that the charitable status rules indicated “a flashpoint on the Berlin Wall” between the “severe sectarian divide” that separates the two education systems. He maintained that people only value education if they pay for it. “Having had experience in Afghanistan, if you give rifles to the Aghanis, they give them to the Taliban. If you sell them to them for $1 they guard them and take care of them.”

In further statements, he maintained that “the very poor quality of teaching in state schools forced thousands of parents to pay for their children’s education.” He then claimed that “it was offensive that local state schools were not good enough for his own children”

His language did not exactly seek to heal the alleged rift, when he said “the Charities Act was like a missile from the maintained sector into the independent school sector”. He then went on to say that “there was a lot of prejudice and bullying from the maintained sector, particularly in the teacher training colleges”.

From our own viewpoint (of Education Advisers Ltd) we sympathise with Mr Parry’s views, which will also be shared by many parents in the private schools sector. However, we suspect that his attack may not have done his argument any favours against the ideological views of Labour back benchers. When Labour MPs vehemently oppose private education, whilst simultaneously sending their own children to independent schools, hypocrisy sets in and logic flies out of the window! Witness Diane Abbot, Labour MP, who admits her own views are “indefensible” in using private education!

Barry Sheerman, the Committee Chairman and Labour MP for Huddersfield, described Parry’s comments as “damaging to all schools” and said “there was nothing to be gained from talk of cold wars, ideological conflicts and bullying”

We are due to hear more from Chris Parry when he elaborates to the next ISC meeting. However, we sense his forthright stance may already have been undermined by the Heads of Ten Leading independent schools who have admitted that in the past private schools have not done sufficient good deeds to justify charitable status and that state and private schools need to work together more effectively.

Some schools are already putting extra increases on fees for 2008/9 so that they can allocate more bursaries to under privileged children. This means more inflation busting fees increases – mostly 5% to 6%. We encourage parents to use www.education-fees.co.uk to find out ways of achieving substantial savings on school fees.

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