I think you might be over estimating how much teachers and nurses get paid mate.
Also, I’d hazard to suggest that the ‘putting VAT on private school fees will damage education’ line might just be an attempt to preserve privilege. Just maybe. How would it damage it exactly?
“It’ll increase class sizes!” Nobody gave a fuck when it wasn’t posh kids who might be in a large class did they?
Won’t it just be the case that fees at these schools will all go up? I know not all of them are at the levels of Eton or Harrow etc but god knows how people do afford them as it is.
but we’re happy with increasing class sizes further? let alone the actual provision of it, i live in an area where every school is massively oversubscribed. even an extra 100 kids suddenly into the local school system would be awful, especially as it’s not like Starmer is going to magically hire 6500 teachers on day 1 is he?
you work in education right? as does (did) my wife and the majority of her extended family. the issue isn’t finding teachers it’s keeping them in teaching. hiring 6500 teachers is going to do nothing for the attrition rates.
frankly it looks like Starmer wants to stick a finger up at independent schools (which he himself attended) with no actual upside for education. experts have told him and his education secretary that it’s not going to be good and will force some independent schools to close. their response is unsurprisingly that their (undisclosed) research shows it will be fine and if those schools are going to close then they can’t have been run very well.
independent schools have charitable status which means they have to re-invest. they’re not money spinning businesses where somebody at the top makes mega bucks. most of the teachers earn less per hour than state schools teachers when the hours are added up.
i know 3 other families that are struggling to keep kids with mild disabilities at independent schools so that they get a better education and smaller class sizes that those kids need. Labours answer is to fuck those families and therefore that’s fairer on everyone? the elite schools (Eton etc.) that the class-war minded are against as “unfair” aren’t even part of this conversation. they’ll eat that VAT rise like it’s nothing. the ultra rich parents won’t even notice. Starmer’s tax isn’t going to fix the education system. it’s just going to reduce the number of independent schools forever. slow clap.
I work in an independent school for kids with serious SEMH and SEN needs man.
Yes, the debate is more nuanced than my reply suggested as evidenced by your long response.
And yes, retention of teachers is more important than recruitment but they’re both important. Recruitment numbers are down in every field except P.E. And bursaries have disappeared so less new teachers are being attracted to what is really a thankless and badly paid but completely essential job.
I get that you hate Starmer (not the biggest fan myself) but as a practicing teacher in an independent school I agree with taxing private school fees and think that promising to recruit 6500 new teachers are both good things.
Will it solve the problem? Obviously not, but it’s better than what any of the other parties are talking about.
In my opinion - what really needs to change is the ideology that led to the 2010 Acadamies Act in the first place and allowing the ‘free market’ lol to direct school policy/pay/ethos/etc.
Currently difficult kids are removed from well performing state schools and end up at places like where I work with smaller class sizes etc. Whilst that is good, it also shows how little mainstream schools care about their most damaged/challenging kids.
The whole system is shite
oh man that’s wild you work in an independent school and support the VAT rise? i can’t even being to understand that
from a somewhat selfish standpoint, if they brought the VAT rise in slowly. or perhaps brought it in for people who aren’t already at those schools (like, you’re gonna buy this thing now its going to have VAT) then that would allow time for schools to sort out how it’s going to work. it would allow time for schools that are going to be receiving a bunch of extra kids to actually accommodate them.
surely even if you accept that VAT on education is fair (something that no other country does because its education) then surely there should be planning and time for it be implemented. Starmer claims he can just push the button on day 1 and pow, 20% extra on schools fee’s from September. it’s not going to be pretty, it’s not going to be reversible and it’s not making any “fairer”
We both know that this is exactly what will happen regardless of pre-election posturing.
see that i agree with. the whole system IS shite.
many experts have said for years that things like the NHS and education need to be removed from the bullshit back and forth of mainstream politics. they should be run by a cross-party coalition of ex-professionals IN THOSE SERVICES who can actually run them properly
every few years we have a new dickhead in charge who wants to throw their weight around. Michael Gove being a prime example.
i will eat my hat if that’s the case. you can provide the knife, fork and mustard
Lolz. Amusingly I was responding whilst being patronised by people on 3 times my wage who don’t teach.
ahhh the joys of it all
must be even worse in the NHS
I dunno - at least nobody dies (that often) at school. God knows why anyone wants to work in the NHS.
Hmm:
That’s what happened to my (Autistic) son, forced out and now at a SEMH/SEN specialist school. The school have done an amazing job with turning him around after the mental health damage he left his first school with. He should be in mainstream with help.
It happens quite a lot. I’m sure parents appreciate you. The decent ones…
In the main, independent schools in the UK are not like independent schools in other countries so the VAT element makes more sense here.
In Sweden, for example, independent schools run in parallel with public schools and have to bid for grant funding that comes from public money. I had a good chat with John Dahlquist from Bryggeriet about this recently because I was interested to understand the difference. They are not run for profit like independent schools in the UK are.
Running a two-tier educational system that allows parents to opt-out of the state funded system if they can afford it effectively means those parents (who are also voters of course) are able to disregard the state education policy commitments to education made by UK government because they will be unaffected. In fact, they are incentivised to vote for governments who make commitments to reducing state education funding because ‘they don’t use it’.
However, obviously enough, the whole country benefits from improvements to state education because it means we have a more educated population right across the wealth divide.
I think removing the VAT loophole means short term impacts for long term gains in the equality of education and is a very obvious and straightforward socialist policy. It’s one I back 100%. Leaving the VAT rules as they are for profit making education businesses represents inequality of opportunity and maintenance of the status quo, which is a right-wing political view and should not even be countenanced by Labour IMHO.
We should bear in mind that we are seeing growth in the private education sector at the moment in the UK and it’s because as a country we are paying less in, reducing the state provision, and driving more business for independent schools.
Your link says he attended an independent school. He’s said it himself. He even got a bursary to pay for his place which is kind of fucked seeing as his VAT tax is going to ensure that there a lot less bursaries or scholarships going forward.
Most UK independent schools have charitable status which means they can’t make a profit. Starmer to aim at that too before realising he’d never get it through the house of lords (and it’s a stupid idea that would turn the whole industry into a profit based business)
Wtf? Some curious opinion there. By that broken logic the NHS and education systems are better off because my kids don’t go to a state school and I have private healthcare (which isn’t the case).
Who do you think is keeping the Tories in? It’s not people who think we should be spending more on state education and the NHS. That’s because right-wing politics aims to reduce state provided services and to replace them with private businesses.
If you vote for a left-wing party you should be voting to provide better and more well funded state services.
Removing an artificial incentive for private business to compete against state services in the education sector makes perfect sense as a left-wing policy. The aim being that over time it will result in a better funded and more inclusive state education system.
The charity thing is another loophole/fiddle. There’s nothing charitable about them!
It restricts how they operate though. They have to put the money back into the school. This is a good thing
