The last six months have seen a series of measures introduced by the government, which seem designed to make it increasingly difficult to sustain a successful independent education sector in the UK.
Before last year’s election, the Labour Party was very clear about its intention to impose VAT on school fees. So I have no complaint about their transparency. I fear, however, that they have significantly misjudged the likely impact of this policy.
In our case, our costs will increase (as a result of VAT, business rates, National Insurance, etc.) by some £7 million in a full year – for a school which last year generated fees of about £35 million. Our fees will need to go up significantly. Our education will become less affordable. Our Bursary Programme will come under added pressure.
Even more worrying is the likely impact on the educational ecosystem in which we exist – in particular our feeder schools. Boarding prep schools were already facing significant challenges, even before the latest changes. They now face a sharply more difficult financial situation, to add to the broader social shift away from boarding at the age of eight. Schools are already closing. More will follow.
Some advocates of this policy argue that it is comparable to the decision to abolish the Assisted Places Scheme in 1998. But this was, in effect, the removal of a subsidy. The new policy is radically different: the imposition of additional net costs of some 20% for most independent schools. I think a better point of comparison might be the 1861 Clarendon Commission, which investigated the running of nine major schools (Winchester included) and led to the Public Schools Act of 1868. Dissatisfied with Winchester’s response, in 1871 the government imposed changes on the school, including the appointment of a new group of Fellows (although existing Fellows were allowed to carry on – my predecessor, Warden Lee, managed to remain in his role until his death in 1903).
This may seem a rather irrelevant bit of history. But, in practice, the governance of Winchester was changed radically as a result of the Clarendon Commission and today we face the likelihood of similarly major change – at Winchester and more widely – flowing from the new financial burdens imposed by the government; combined with a move towards more homogenised learning across the maintained and independent sectors. It is not yet clear where the latter process will end, but the Secretary of State’s approach to Academies suggests a desire to revert to greater central control of what is taught in schools – and how; to insist on teaching qualifications as a precursor to work in the classroom (which would reduce our ability to recruit talented graduates and help them train on the job); and to make education ever more vocational in its purpose.
The principle of having a vocational focus to much of our education system is admirable (and, indeed, William of Wykeham founded Winchester and New College in significant part to provide replacements for the priests killed in the Black Death). However, William of Wykeham was also a radical innovator in how he wanted education delivered – and to whom. It is a tribute to his vision that Henry VI borrowed so much of it when founding Eton College 60 years later. It would be nice to think that Bridget Phillipson’s reforms might be seen as a model to follow in the 2080s – but improbable.
