PLEASE may we be spared further nineteenth century class warfare and spite over people buying private school education.

By relieving the rest of us from educating their children they are saving us, the taxpayers, 7 per cent on the nation’s bill for education. 
Is that not public benefit enough?

Many parents meet the fees through considerable financial cost to themselves: budget holidays, third-hand cars and a wardrobe stocked from the sale rails etc.

Apart from bringing money into the country, the value of foreign students is the international connections they bring.


READ MORE: LETTER: People who provately educate their children should pay their way


Closer to home, education is one of the main economic drivers of Taunton’s economy and probably its largest employer.

The schools offer a lot to the community in many different ways to those who are open-minded enough to take up their offer. There are excellent and committed teachers but the system is dominated by an out-of-date educational ideology.

The comprehensive system was an exercise in social engineering which has not only failed, it has also short changed over four decades of our nation’s young people.

Different children have different needs – I should know.

It was clear to me when our children were at primary school that one would cope with the academic system whereas the other would thrive on a technical college sandwich course.


READ MORE: INSIGHT: Should VAT on private school fees fund free school meals?


The former is now a consultant physician and the latter is now a technical consultant in a small software company that operates globally.

What moral right does your correspondent to have to pontificate on how others choose to spend their money?

Please get up to date – we are now in the world of the twenty first century.

D BRADLEY
Kingston St Mary
Taunton