In her last months, Jade Goody sold the story of her tragic death from cancer to the media. She let go of what dignity she had left, and allowed her family’s private and very personal pain to be broadcast across the world for all to see, a world where she knew she was already a controversial topic and the subject of much media animosity and divided opinions. She knew she would be criticised but she bore it all well, and why? So that she could die knowing that she was leaving her sons with enough money for a private education.
Now, I’m not saying Jade was wrong to want to give her boys that future – after all she herself was one of thousands, probably even millions, who feel that they have been failed by the state education system. But it begs the question of the lengths parents have to go to get their children in to a good school, and whether private prep schools are really so much better than regular comprehensives if they come at such a cost to families?
School fees have spiralled in recent years, and the latest figures suggest that parents are now expected to pay an average of around £3,000 per term to keep their child in private education, or as much as £7,350 for boarding schools. Perhaps as a result, there has been a bit of a backlash against the so-called benefits of private education, with many people believing that a child can succeed wherever they are if they get the right encouragement. Michelle Obama gave new life to this belief last month when she visited a girls’ state school in London and met with the pupils there, showing her obvious support for the school and telling its pupils that ‘you are all jewels’.
But whatever the media decides to report next and however expensive it may be to send a child to private school, especially when many parents are struggling with the recession, the fact remains that on average private schools do still achieve better grades. Bearing in mind that only 18 per cent of all sixth form pupils attend independent sixth form colleges, figures show that 10,156 of these pupils achieved three As at A-level last year, compared to just 7,484 pupils in state schools.
It’s certainly food for thought for parents, and a difficult choice to make between what might be a better education for their children, but probably having to make serious cutbacks in other areas to be able to afford it. Many parents would have to start saving the moment their baby is born, or even earlier, just to get their child through the door of a private school.
