An Education

One of the persistent myths surrounding our education system is that private schools, and most specifically public schools, turn out pupils imbued with a world-beating 'confidence', which allows them to succeed in life, where their sate school educated counterparts fail. I see it repeated on TV and in newspaper columns, by parents, pundits and politicians. Just lately, we've had that bald headed buffoon Toby Young telling us how the 'free school' he has set up will embrace the 'values' which produce this supposed confidence and, worst of all, we've been subjected to an entirely self-serving piece in The Guardian by the head master of one of those academies for sexual deviance they call public schools, telling the left that they just had to get used to the fact that such institutions are superior at turning out 'confident' and therefore successful students. These apologists will tell you how it is all down to the standards and teaching methods employed in the private education sector.

I'm not buying into any of this propaganda. I never have and never will. The truth is that what many, including many on the left, perceive as 'confidence', I call 'arrogance'. The reality is that the kind of pupils who attend these institutions are already from highly privileged backgrounds, (oh, I know they let in the odd token oik on a scholarship, but that's just to pay lip service to their bogus 'charitable' status), and have never known the kind of deprivation or poverty that a not insignificant attendees at state schools will have. Most significantly, they, or rather their parents, have money. Money to pay the fees charged by these schools, which enable them to provide their students with a level of resources few state schools can provide. However, the real secret to the supposed 'success' that public school pupils subsequently enjoy in life has less to do with the standard of education they receive, and more to do with their privileged backgrounds.

Their parents and families already occupy senior positions in the city, industry or politics and have influence and contacts in other spheres, making it much easier for their offspring to make careers in these same institutions. Moreover, by being at school with other children from similar backgrounds increases their ability to network their way into high paying jobs. Consequently, they needn't fear failure - they know that they can walk into a highly remunerative career. And even if they do 'fail', their families' money means that it really won't be that painful - the dole queue and a damp-ridden council flat won't beckon them. So, enough of this corrosive myth - public school graduates are no better than us oiks from the state sector, just more arrogant.