A number of private schools have teamed up and formed the Independent Schools Association. The idea is to pool resources and present a united front in the interest of the 7,000 children (10.8% of all schoolchildren) who are currently attending these schools.
One of the first moves made by this association was the commissioning of a report which will be drawn up by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The brief given to the research firm is to come up with recommendations on how to make independent schools more accessible and ultimately affordable for families. The message is that the schools do not want direct funding from government, but would like to encourage the authorities to offer increased assistance to parents who send their children to these schools.
Ultimately, I suppose, the most viable way of helping these parents would be to make school fees tax deductible. At present there already is such a system in place, but only a small portion of the fees can be claimed as a cost – it is clear that the schools are pushing for a larger percentage of the fees to be included.
The announcement resulted in a barrage of insults and criticism. Browsing through comment boards, the recurring theme was that people who send their children to independent schools do so because they are elitist and do not want their kids to mix with the hoi polloi.
I find such attitudes unbelievable in this day and age. The time has come to debunk this classist myth once and for all – after all the very fact that the schools are asking the government to make them more accessible to those with a lower income proves that they not elitist.
I have two school-age children and they both attend San Andrea, which happens to be one of the founding members of the ISA. I did not send my daughters to this school because I wanted to avoid them mixing with the ‘great unwashed’. I sent them to San Andrea because I was impressed with the school’s ethos and wanted my children to grow up in an environment where learning is a joy.
My eldest daughter is six years old and she loves going to school. Every morning I drive her there and she runs off, full of excitement about the activities planned for the day. The keyword here is ‘planning’, because if one thing never ceases to amaze me it is the holistic approach taken by schools such as San Andrea.
This last term, for example, the theme was ‘Space’. Their singing teacher taught them songs about the planets and where they are positioned in the solar system; their art teacher asked them to paint pictures of space (did you know that Jupiter has a massive red spot?); their IT lessons involved visiting sites about astronomy for kids and their spelling games were about rockets, comets and asteroids.
My daughter came home the other day full of beans. “Mummy,” she asked, “did you know that people thought the earth was flat until Galileo Galilei discovered it was round?” (“Yes”, I answered). “Mummy, do you know the name of the first space dog?” (“No” – I did not and she informed me that his name was Laika). “Mummy, do you know the name of the first man who walked on the moon?” (Thankfully I did).
Every time my four-year-old comes home and tells me about how they planted beans and are watering them to see how plants grow (“seeds need sun and water to grow, mummy!”) or my six-year-old comes up to me and announces – “I love science, I want to be a scientist when I grow up!” I thank my lucky stars that I sent my girls to San Andrea. This is a school that instils a love of learning in its students, which is definitely the most important foundation for their academic future.
School should not be about misery and homework. Kids under the age of 10 should not be learning stuff off by heart and getting stressed out. It is perfectly possible to teach them just as much, if not more, by making it fun. That’s what independent schools are doing, and they are doing it spectacularly well. It is definitely no accident that 97% of students continue their education at tertiary level after graduating from these schools. Compare that to the national average and it will be clear that these independent schools are doing something right.
That is why parents from all walks of life opt to send their children to independent schools. The great majority of parents are not snobbish and snooty, they are normal people who work hard and have to make sacrifices in order to pay for their children’s education. They know that their kids would also get a good education in a state school or a church school, but they want their children to enjoy their childhood and have fun while they learn.
In my opinion the ISA is making a good point. In order to have true choice then these schools have to become more affordable and the easiest way of doing that is to offer tax incentives to parents. At the end of the day, the government will actually end up saving money because, believe it or not, it costs more to educate a child in a government school than it does in an independent school.
Let me do the math. Let us assume that it costs the same to educate a child in an independent school and a government school and let us set that amount to an arbitrary figure of €2,500 per annum (in actual fact reports have shown that the cost of education in a government school is higher). If a child is educated in a state school that is €2,500 out of the state coffers. If, on the other hand, that child is sent to an independent school and the full €2,500 is tax deductible, then assuming that the parents pay tax at the highest tax band, the government foregoes €875 in taxes. The first child cost the state €2,500 while the second cost €875. Which one would you prefer if you were the minister in charge of the finances of the country?
The government is duty bound to use the money it collects as taxes in the wisest way possible. If it gives additional tax credits to parents who send their children to private schools the likelihood is that more children will be educated privately. This will ultimately reduce the burden on the state. That way everyone is a winner. The schools win because they will have more income from more students, the parents win because they will have a wider choice of schools and the government wins because it saves money!
The concept is a good one and definitely worth exploring.
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