Private schools and song thrushes

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The other day I walked past the scene shown in this photograph and fell to thinking. My first thought centred on the song thrush that was singing its heart out from the top of a roadside tree even though it was ten minutes to eleven in the evening. Was this, I wondered, due to the fact that light remained in the sky or was it because of the street lights' illumination? Perhaps it was the combination of the two light sources that prompted its nocturnal canticle.

My second thought was one of despair. How long, I wondered, will our country have to suffer the dead weight of private education delivered by our so-called public schools? Is there no political party prepared to look at the clear evidence that private education not only impedes our country's economic progress through the values that it imparts, is one of the main causes of inequality that affects the rich every bit as much as the poor, and is a form of schooling that doesn't even deliver the educational goods that it professes to offer? One would imagine that a socialist party would give some thought to the issue, but no. You'd also think that parties of the right that espouse market values and a "survival of the fittest" culture would have no truck with a school system that produces students with inflated examination qualifications (see the link between average quality of university degree achieved by pupils of state and public schools with the same school examination grades), or that promotes advancement through socio-economic selection and networks rather than ability. But no, our private public schools continue to flog their wares to the well-heeled, the buyers and sellers profit, and the country continues to suffer from their self-interest.

The domed chapel shown in silhouette was completed in 1901. It serves Giggleswick School, "a co-educational boarding and day school", that charges fees to educate pupils. It is one of the many private educational establishments that I think our country would do well to dispense with for the better education and prosperity of all.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

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Etonians, education and power

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I saw in my newspaper the other day that Jesse Norman MP thinks Etonians (products of Eton public, i.e. private, school) are dominant in the government because other schools do not have the same "commitment to public service". When I read it I was dumbfounded that someone who had received that gilded education didn't understand the purpose of places such as Eton and the main reason why parents send their children to them.

He might think it's to receive a good education. So might you. But you'd be wrong. The main reason is to maintain or to improve the social position of the individual. This is done by the schools not only charging high, riff-raff excluding fees, but ensuring they are very effective exam factories at which pupils get high grades (not the same as a good education), passes that will allow them to apply to Oxford or Cambridge, or at the very least, to one of the Russell Group of universities. Importantly, they also give pupils the opportunity to mix with others of the same advantaged background, to network with people who have similar aims, and with them to move into jobs of power and influence where they will earn a lot of money. In such advantaged circles it often means that who you know trumps what you know, that jobs can be offered by grace and favour, and that interviews may be formalities rather than the sifting process they are for the most people. Far too many of our current crop of politicians have benefited from this process and seek to confer its advantages on their own children.

The idea that Etonians have any more "commitment to public service" than the products of state schools or even other private schools is risible. I never came across any of Eton's finest when, during the course of my job, I met social workers or other mainstream public sector workers. Politics used to be seen by many aspiring MPs as a way of serving the public but today voter disenchantment is, in part, because the main motive now appears to be self-serving aggrandisement. I think that the Etonians who go into politics are no different from politicians of different backgrounds in this respect. A while ago I spoke as a member of a panel at a meeting about the forthcoming general election. At one point the discussion turned to education. I said that what I didn't want was another crop of politicians to be elected that came from the same so-called elite schools and universities because they had no understanding of wider society and lacked the skills necessary to move our country forwards. I remember a fellow panellist (echoing the man who is currently prime minister) saying that a politician's background isn't important. Nothing I've seen from this incompetent Coalition government has made me change my views that it does matter enormously.

Jesse Norman's words came to mind as I was processing this photograph of London's City Hall, a shot I took on my recent visit to the capital. I remembered that another old Etonian, Boris Johnson, is currently mayor. I'd say bad luck London, but the voters have seen fit to vote him in twice. To me that says much about the level of political understanding and engagement in the UK. What people have forgotten is that Old Etonians and their kind flourish and the rest of us languish when the voting public pays little attention to politics and is more interested in celebrity, status and the status quo.

For a couple more of my photographs of Norman Foster's building see here and here.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

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Strange fruit and Old Etonians

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The early life of any plant, animal or human is crucial in determining what it becomes. If you plant a cabbage seedling and restrict its water, nutrients and light you'll end up with a weedy specimen that's only good for composting. Similarly, if your dog doesn't get a balanced diet but is indulged with treats far too often then it will balloon, become lethargic and die younger than it would otherwise have done.

And so too with politicians. The leader of the Conservative Party claims that it is irrelevant that a large number of his shadow cabinet (and prospective government) were educated at Eton, an elite, expensive "public" (i.e. private) school, saying "It's not where you come from, but where you are going" that matters. He's right of course, unless, your privileged background and expensive education lead you to formulate policies designed to enrich and protect the interests of people like yourself. And that, it appears, is precisely what these Old Etonians are doing. So, in this instance it most certainly does matter where you come from. It always amazes me that many of the British public do not see that private education is just as much about protecting or securing position in society as it is about learning; is expressly designed to support the privileged; and is counter to the wider interests of our country.

Today's photograph of an over-exposed Physalis-variety fruit prompted this reflection. The spherical orange seed container has grown in a protected environment, insulated from its surroundings by the enveloping pod that I've prised open for my photograph. It isn't from a Physalis franchetii (Chinese Lantern), but a variety with blue flowers that produces black (not orange) lanterns.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

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Schools and society

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British society is riven by inequalities that have their roots in the vastly unequal distribution of wealth. In recent years these inequalities have become entrenched, and social mobility is now worse than it was forty years ago. After World War Two the public education system was reorganised, with the result that bright children from poor backgrounds found it easier to get into higher education. This was good for society, good for those individuals, and good for the economy because the people's potential was better realised.

Today, however, that progress has not only stalled, it has gone into reverse. At the root of the problem is Britain's class system. Those with money, position and power believe it is theirs by right, that they deserve their abundance, and they are increasingly reluctant to share it - except with their offspring. So, one of the tools they use to achieve their selfish ends is the education system . The richest segment of society, by and large, educates its children in private schools. They rationalise this decision by saying that they can buy a better education than the free state schools provide. In fact, their money buys social position, private schools being more adept at giving pupils the qualifications necessary for higher education, particularly at the elite universities, and entry into the professions. A group of those who aspire to private education, but who can't afford to pay for it, seek a grammar school education. These state-funded selective schools cream off higher attaining pupils at age 11, educate them separately from the rest of their age group, and aim, at the end of their school time, to place them in the better universities and ultimately, the better jobs.

Many don't see a problem with this. I do. The result of this social and educational apartheid is that the remainder of the country's children - in fact the vast majority - receive a poorer education than they might otherwise, and are denied the life-chances of the more affluent. Many intelligent children who would benefit from a university education don't get it because their places are taken by less bright (but better qualified) pupils from private and grammar schools. The nation as a whole suffers socially and economically from the depredations of these odious institutions. Those who do get to higher education from state schools demonstrate, by the quality of their degrees, that they and their education are in no way inferior to their more favoured colleagues, but, there are far fewer than there should be, particularly in the elite group of universities. Some of us expected a Labour government, particularly one that achieved three successive terms of office, to deal with this pressing issue. How naive we were!

Today's photograph prompted this diatribe. It shows the public library in the village of Wainfleet All Saints, Lincolnshire. This was originally a school, built in 1484 by Bishop Waynflete of Winchester, who also founded Magdalen College, Oxford. At a time when England's schools were all privately financed, Wainfleet fed pupils to its Oxford college. However, from 1877 until 1933 it was a selective grammar school, and is still called "the old grammar school" by those who remember that period. Interestingly, from 1951 to 1966 it was a Secondary Modern School - an establishment for all those pupils who did not attend a grammar or private school, but no one ever calls it by that less elevated name! It became what must be one of the most ancient public libraries in the country in 1968. Mmmm, on second thoughts, perhaps there is a future for those grammar and private schools after all!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
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