Opting for a private education

Record numbers of parents are turning their backs on state education

Despite increasing government spending by two thirds, in real terms, since 1997, record numbers of parents are turning their backs on state education and paying up to £25,000 a year for private education.

Average private day-school fees have more than doubled in this period, according to the ISC report.

Almost a quarter of sixth-formers now attend a private school while, in London, one in seven pupils is privately educated; in Edinburgh it is one in four.

Overall 509,093 children attend ISC member schools, where the average pupil to staff ratio is the lowest ever, and there is one teacher for every 9.7 pupils. This compares with a ratio of 17 to 1 pupils to staff in state schools.

Despite average fees of £8,790 and a drop in the number of British children of school age, there has been no let-up in the number of parents opting for private education. Head teachers say that this is not only because society is getting richer and families are having fewer children, but because parents are also better informed and more concerned about education.

Mounting pressures of commuting and long working hours have also persuaded more parents to turn to independent schools to give their children the care and attention they cannot always provide at home.

The Independent Schools Council covers 1,276 schools from nursery to sixth-form level, including Britain’s most elite, of a total of 2,500 independent schools.

Fourteen schools now charge more than £25,000 a year and the average boarding school fee at secondary level is £20,000. Of the half a million pupils, just 67,335 are boarders.

The annual census also reveals that 20,852 overseas pupils attend public school in Britain, the majority from Hong Kong and China. Although the number of boarders has dropped slightly, Britain’s military commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq may account for a surge in the number of Armed Forces families sending children to private schools.

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