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Youth councillors Eleanor Bley Griffiths (voted against the motion) and Axel Landin (voted for) |
Youth Council in call to axe private schools
Young politicians vote for an end to ‘disgraceful’ fee-paying education – but not all agree!
TEENAGERS on Camden’s Youth Council have described private schools as a “national disgrace” and passed a motion calling for their abolition.
But students at fee-paying schools in the borough can breathe a sigh of relief. While the Youth Council may feed ideas into their adult counterparts’ thinking, the decision to ban private schools from Camden will not be made Town Hall policy just yet.
The motion, passed just before Christmas by 10 youth councillors to four, read: “This house believes that fee-paying schools are a national disgrace and would abolish them, introducing a fully comprehensive education system.”
Of the four against, three attend private schools – a further four abstained from the vote.
Youth councillor Eleanor Bley Griffiths, a student at City of London School for Girls in the Barbican, championed the cause of private schools and voted against the motion.
“I agree it’s not fair that certain pupils who are very clever aren’t able to achieve their full potential [at state school],” she said, “but I don’t think this is a good way to solve it where everyone will not be able to. It’s accepted you get a better education in private schools.
“Would we rather disadvantage the clever ones by forcing them into an education that wouldn’t take them to their full potential in the name of this?
“If the standard of education in state schools is not high enough we shouldn’t be forcing students to go to state schools.”
However, Cllr Bley Griffiths, 16, who has since quit the Youth Council, blaming a heavy workload and lack of support from adult colleagues, was in the minority.
Cllr Axel Landin, 17, co-leader of the council and the politician responsible for the debate, was firmly against fee-paying schools.
“I do understand Cllr Bley Griffiths’s point,” he said, “but it’s the existence of a two-tier system that makes state schools less likely to help people achieve.”
Alderman Rona Tunnadine, 17, said private schools negatively affected the student body at state schools, drawing on her experience at South Camden Community School in Somers Town as examples.
“A lot of students didn’t have English as a first language while the wealthy middle-class kids were getting sent to private schools,” she said.
“The result of that was that the school wasn’t balanced.”
Cllr Lorenzo Brewer, 13, said he went to William Ellis and it “should get all the good middle-class students in the area” but they all go to UCS and Highgate. “This is the fault of the private school system,” he said.
A familiar argument about the trend for middle-class families to move into catchment areas of high-achieving state schools was described as creating “segregation” by Cllr Sophie Newgas, 17, who abstained from the final vote.
“I don’t think this thing [abolishing private schools] would work out perfectly,” she warned.
Non fee-paying schools that have entry exams were also criticised by Cllr Landin, who argued they excluded poor students because those wealthy enough to afford home tutoring would be more likely to pass. |
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