6:00pm Saturday 2nd January 2010
By Julie Magee
THE number of children being sent to private schools has risen to a 12-year high, despite the recession and billions of pounds being spent on state education.
Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show that growing numbers of middle-class parents in counties such as Dorset and Hampshire are turning their backs on comprehensives.
Nearly nine per cent of pupils of secondary school age are now being educated in the independent sector.
The scale of the exodus to fee-paying schools is greatest in shire counties. But figures based on a census in January last year also point to significant numbers of privately educated pupils in many towns and cities outside private schools’ traditional Home Counties’ heartlands.
Statistics show that private schools weathered the early effects of the credit crunch and increased their market share, despite a hike in fees estimated at 40 per cent in five years.
Private schools’ success during 12 years of Labour rule has triggered claims that the party has failed to reform state schools.
Tory schools spokesman Michael Gove (corr) said: “The fact that parents are increasingly opting for fee-paying schools is a worrying sign that state education is not good enough in many areas.”
But a Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said: “The overwhelming majority of pupils attend state schools which are delivering the best standards ever.
“Some parents will always choose the private sector.”
The release of the figures coincided with claims by the director general of the Confederation of British Industry that Britain should be ashamed of its state education system and the “culture of low aspiration” it had bred.
Richard Lambert said millions of pounds were going to waste in schools because ministers constantly “messed around’” with policy and warned that a generation of pupils lacked the skills to succeed in business.
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