Britian's Private School Problem (2019) | Hacker News Reader

Britian's Private School Problem (2019)

theguardian.com

Just to be clear in the UK most of the private schools are called public schools for historical reasons [1]. I used to attend one of these public school institutions and their education quality is second to none because most of the teachers are Oxbridge (Oxford and Cambridge) graduates. Their teachers and headmasters are very well paid, and it's not surprising that the headmasters have the equivalent salaries to their UK ministers. Some minority students can attend the day school (non-boarding) with much lower fee and most of these day school students are sponsored by their respective school funds.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom)

I wonder whether these private schools are a net benefit to the country.

In recent generations, I have not really noticed that UK as a whole has been particularly innovative relative to its European peers.

It sometimes feel the whole fancy school system in Britain is just a way to maintain an immutable social hierarchy rather than actually making the country more competitive globally.

It’s ridiculous to imagine having to pay 50k a year every year before university and think that is a normal way of life.

One might as well put that money in a savings account, move to a country with better public education, then give that money to the kid when they get their first job.

I also think it's ridiculously expensive as well but it's not uncommon for several siblings from the same parents to attend the same public school and the fee alone can be USD200K for a family.

For my mathematics class, about half of my classmates were non-UK citizens. It seems that people are not emigrating away from the UK but they actually immigrating into UK because of the public schools. According to article this type of elite expensive education is only for less than 5% of the population that can afford to pay. Their top public school (Eton College) is virtually impossible to join even if you have tons of money and the prestiges (foreign royalty family).

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