Paulatic wrote:..... and 56 years on from learning the game I’m still playing it so my education wasn’t totally wasted.
I’m surprised on this thread the support there is for private education. My vote was for none and I’d strongly advise looking at the Finnish education system.
Times ticks by and as it progresses so many things evolve and change. The best part of sixty years (since you were at school) has certainly changed UK society massively. The few privately educated children that I’ve overlapped with via my own State educated children have been pleasant enough and whilst confident they didn’t have an air of entitlement about them. Perhaps my children have been selective in who they overlapped with but State school kids can be pretty awful too and so can State Schools in general. I appreciate the logic but to tar all Private Schools with the same brush is unjust.
I think that support of the private system reflects modern times and pragmatism. To shut it down would overall be an act of national self harm with many unintended consequences, better by far to regulate it in various ways and to ensure that the ethos of such schools is socially responsible and not elitist.
The Finnish system is interesting but one needs to remember that their history and culture is different to ours too so what was a good change for them might well not be a good change for us. Personally I’d like to see the State Schools in this country being so good that few if any parents would see value in Private Education. Turn the issue on it’s head, but in doing so one might have to recognise that the bulk of State Schools fail to engage with their children well and that whilst their funds might not all be perfectly spent State Schools are still not sufficiently funded. I find it strange that we never had the money to fund schools properly when children could leave at sixteen, but somehow we found extra funds to (now) keep then there ‘till eighteen. Maybe I’m a cynic but IIRC the Government that introduced the change had some problems with youth unemployment, and unemployment in general.
