Private vs. State

by Ed Bowsher on 14 January 2010  |  0 comments
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Here's why private schools are rarely just a little bit better than state schools.

Imagine we lived in a world where the government gave free Ford Focuses to all adults over the age of 25. Sounds very generous, I know, but there would be a couple of catches. You could never sell your Focus to anyone and you couldn't get a cash alternative. So you'd have three choices when it came to cars:

- no car

- get a free Ford Focus

- buy another car for which you'd have to pay the full cost.

In this imaginary world, you'd be a bit bonkers if you decided to reject the Ford Focus and pay full price for a Volkswagen Golf instead. Or even a Ford Mondeo. Sure, the Mondeo is a larger car but would you really want to pay the full price to get something that was only a bit better than a free Focus?

So I reckon most people would take the Focus. Only the rich would feel able to reject the free car and instead pay full price for a Mercedes or a Ferrari.

So what's the point of this analogy?

It's an attempt to illuminate how our educational system works. I should add that I didn't come up with it. It's come from the brain of an Oxford economist called Paul Collier who wrote a column about it in today's Independent. Well worth a read.

I think it's a very powerful analogy. Because it shows why there are remarkably few private schools that are just a bit better than your average comprehensive. Such a private school wouldn't have amazing facilities, it would just have, say, five fewer pupils per class but apart from that, it would be pretty similar to a decent state school.

But the reality is that most private schools are way ahead of the state sector in terms of facilities and class sizes. The private schools have to take that approach because they have to offer something that is so superior that rich parents will reject the offer of a free Ford Focus and buy a Mercedes instead.

As Collier says: 'this is why the increase in state spending on schools over the past few years has been matched by a similarly large increase in fees charged by private schools. The choice with which the government faces parents guarantees educational apartheid.'

The only way to solve this problem would be to give parents education vouchers which they could top up. So a parent would receive a voucher for £3000 and could then pay an extra £1000 for a school that was a bit better than your average state school. But there are downsides with vouchers. Most obviously, you could end up with 'sink schools' for the children of parents who were unable or unwilling to pay top-ups.

So I'm not quite sure what the answer is. But it's an interesting article.....

Postscript: Just to be clear, I'm not saying that all state schools offer a poor education. Far from it. The Ford Focus is a good car, and there are many good state schools. But we have seen a trend in recent years where many private schools become ever more luxurious, and I think Paul Collier has highlighted one reason why this has happened.