Michael Portillo Article for Kensington & Chelsea News

3 February 2005

Eton

Recently I spoke at Eton College. Having received an excellent education at a state grammar school without my parents giving to pay a penny, I am not genetically wired to defend fee-paying schools. But I always enjoy meeting Eton boys who are well informed and self-confident. In my experience some of the most penetrating questions come from school students rather than professional interviewers.

Eton is phenomenally successful in preparing young men for higher education. About seventy boys will go on to Oxford and Cambridge this year. That is remarkable because boys whose families are rich enough to pay the fees at Eton may or may not be the brightest. Of course the fee income helps the school to maintain excellent facilities and a good pupil/teacher ratio.

An index of international comparisons shows that the British fee-paying schools are the best in the world. That ought to be a well-known fact and a source of national pride. But this is one statistic that the government does not “spin” because it is hostile to the private sector in education (although some Labour politicians send their own children to fee-paying and selective schools).

The government’s antipathy was illustrated by Gordon Brown’s attack on an Oxford college over the case of Laura Spence. He wrongly alleged that she had been rejected because she had attended a state school. In fact the college had accepted five candidates of whom three were women, three also from ethnic minorities and two from comprehensive schools.

What concerns the government is that the standard of candidates from state schools is falling and it is hard for the universities to maintain their proportion amongst entrants. If the public schools did not exist the government’s failures would be easier to disguise. The proper response to the achievements of the fee-paying schools would be to celebrate that success and see how their experience could be used to raise standards generally.

There are not many education league tables that Britain tops these days. Oxford and Cambridge are the only European universities in the highest echelon, but they rank behind a long list of American institutions. Our universities are under-resourced. Even top-up fees will not be enough to return them to a position where they compete with the best in the world.

Eton is embarked on a massive fundraising drive to create a large endowment fund. It would enable perhaps half the places at the school to go to students whose parents could not afford the full fees.

In Britain, by comparison with the USA, we have only a weak tradition of giving financial support to our alma mater. I hope that we can begin to change that, especially as wealth spreads and as a few accumulate vast fortunes. That money can be used to transform the opportunities for some young people. Rather than attack our successful schools, the government should seek to spread their benefits.