UK NEWS

PRIVATE SCHOOLS TOLD: LEND TEACHERS OR LOSE £100M

Alan Johnson

Sunday May 27,2007

By Jason Groves

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(4)

PRIVATE schools could be stripped of their £100million-a-year charitable status unless they help the struggling state sector, Education Secretary Alan Johnson warned yesterday.

In a move designed to attract left-wing support in Labour’s deputy leadership race, Mr Johnson declared private schools “need to do more” if they want to hang on to their charitable status.

Mr Johnson said private schools should lend their teachers to local comprehensives and accept state pupils on secondment.

He added: “It’s not enough just to lend their playing fields; it’s about opening up their science labs, lending their teachers to the state sector, sponsoring academies and forming trusts.”

His comments provoked concern from both the private and state sectors last night. They also left selective education facing a pincer movement – with the Tory leadership declaring it would not back down over its controversial stance on grammar schools, despite a widespread grassroots rebellion. Tory education spokesman David Willetts, who sent his own children to private schools, said middle-class parents had to think about the needs of less advantaged children as well as their own.

Mr Willetts said: “Part of the challenge is that we may be better parents than we are citizens. In other words, we are focused on what we are trying to do for our own children, which is perfectly admirable. It’s not wrong. But the question is, what about the environment for children as a whole?”

An ICM poll yesterday suggested the new Tory opposition to selection was out of touch with the public mood. The poll found that two-thirds of people would like to see at least one state grammar school in every town.

Private schools insisted they already work hard to put something back into the community. Anthony Seldon, master of Wellington College public school, welcomed Mr Johnson’s “refreshing” words, which he said would end a century-old educational “apartheid”.

But Andrew Boggis, of the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference of leading independent schools, said ministers seemed to be trying to acquire the independent school ethos “on the cheap”. He said government funding for partnership work between the two sectors had been pitiful. “In 2004, funding was £1.4million”.

Meanwhile, the National Union of Teachers said many members would resent Mr Johnson’s apparent suggestion that private school teachers were better than their state sector counterparts.

But the Charity Commission said Mr Johnson was justified in expecting private schools to do more if they wanted to retain their historic charitable status.”

Last night it emerged that the number of academies is set to almost double this autumn, with 36 opening in deprived inner city areas.

What do YOU think? Should private schools put something back into the community, or should the government do something to improve the state system without having to borrow teachers? Comment NOW on Have Your Say.

PRIVATE SCHOOLS

27.05.07, 11:17am

I do not imagine that private school teachers are generally better than state school ones. The difference is behavior. Private schools have the ability to expel those who do not conform to their rules, as a result those who want to learn are able to do so without their education being disrupted by those who do not. Putting teachers from private schools into a badly controlled school will solve nothing, except to give the government further excuse to meddle.

• Posted by: exnomad • Report Comment

PRIVATE SCHOOLS TOLD: LEND TEACHERS OF LOSE £100M

27.05.07, 11:11am

Here we go again. Bring everything down and demolish anything of any good. Why should the teachers be 'lent' to state schools, if I've paid a great deal of money for my child to go to private education I don't see their teachers should go missing! Besides which teachers in private schools probably wouldn't want to go anywhere near state schools.
As for the £100million a year charitable status, they earn it by putting out into society decently educated youngsters who achieve a great deal in most cases.
HANDS OFF PRIVATE SCHOOLS AND BRING BACK GRAMMAR SCHOOLS FOR THE BENEFIT OF WORKING CLASS HOPEFULS.

• Posted by: Jac16 • Report Comment

PRIVATE SCHOOLS TOLD: LEND TEACHERS OF LOSE £100M

27.05.07, 10:50am

why should a school were the so called elite or the rich can send there chilldren to get charity status does that mean they dont pay vat what a joke a private school is made on a profit basis or why would it exist .
There should be a fair playing field ie , they all should have charity status or they all should have none its against the pupils human rights to have one better off than the othere

• Posted by: melmorris • Report Comment

LEND TEACHERS OR LOSE £100 MILLION.

27.05.07, 10:41am

Let us get rid of this Nulabour twack before he does far more damage to a already fragile education system.
He is trying to make a name for himself to curry favour with Comrade Jock Boone who will soon sit in the chairmans chair.
He is intent of penalizing private schools for their success instead of raising the standards in the state sector.
We need private schools as Chairman Jock Bliar says to give CHOICE.
If you lend out teachers the private sector will suffer and be brought down to the state level.
The Nulabour communist despotic misgovernment has had 10 years to fix EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION and has failed so why drag something which is good and works well, down?
Alan Johnson this stupidity of yours will not do you any favours, you have dropped one here.

• Posted by: Robertz • Report Comment