UNLIKE Libby Lisgo I am, in educational matters, a Marxist.
I believe it would be better for the economic and social welfare of the nation if all independent schools were abolished.
It stands to reason that there will be a greater pool of brains, skills and talents among the 92% of children who go to state schools than the 8% who go to private schools and they should logically dominate the professional classes.
But they don’t and in fact it is very much the other way round.
This of course is due to privilege.
I don’t in any way blame those parents who buy privilege for their children’s education because if the opportunity is there, it seems sensible for them to take it if they can afford it.
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But in economic terms it does mean that private school second raters, and this would mean most of them, occupy positions of power, purpose, prestige and authority denied to the first raters and even the second raters of the state system.
This is not so much a glass ceiling as a class ceiling and the system rolls on perpetuating itself.
To deny the brains and talents of the majority in favour of the second rate cannot be healthy for a country in terminal decline where the gap between the well off and the poor is getting ever greater.
NIGEL GRIFFIN
Taunton
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