An utterly misleading article in The New Statesman prompted the following rejoinder.
Francis Green and David Kynaston claim that fee increases at independent schools following Labour’s imposition of VAT “will render a socially exclusive system a touch more exclusive” (article, 31 January). They ignore the chief feature of the independent sector of education today: that it is packed with small schools, almost unknown outside their localities but greatly cherished within them.
The Department of Education’s figures show that over 1,000 independent schools, 40 per cent of the total, have under 100 pupils. Jewish and Muslim schools, charging fees of around £3,000 a year, are amongst them. Other small schools supplement the state’s provision for special needs, now in deep crisis, by giving some 100,000 children, for whom no public money is available, an education that meets their particular requirements, no matter how complex, at a cost local families have hitherto been able to afford.
The head of a school in Derbyshire with 120 children writes to tell me “we are working tirelessly to keep our life’s work open” after the imposition of VAT. Those who denounce the famous “public schools” as bastions of privilege should stop depicting them as typical of the independent education sector.
Alistair Lexden
President of the Independent Schools Association(representing 700 small schools)
House of Lords
