You missed the introduction of tuition fees, did you?

School kids pay tuition fees do they?

That is generally fair. Of course there are issues in the system with "good" schools and "poor" schools, but in general it's ok.

The problem comes when that system is circumvented by a small minority who receive "better" education and far, far more opportunities.

"Good" schools and "poor" schools are usually nothing of the sort - they are (usually) just a reflection of the intake / catchment area. My children went to a so called "beacon" primary school. The reality was it was not a patch in organisational, etc terms on the old one that my son originally attended in London. The beacon school just happened to be located in one of the most affluent towns on the country whereas the former school in a not very affluent part of the country. Transfer the latter school to the former's location and it would result in chaos and failing school status!

Agreed intake plays a large part but there are undoubtably some schools that are better run or have better teachers than others. But either way that wasn't the point. The point was that the relatively fair system can be circumvented by those with money.

There are not many young adults in school at 19.

I believe everyone has a right to 3 years in the 6th form if they wish.

Slight diversion, but if you're meaning (in part at least) private education, then personally I've seen nothing to suggest that it's better than a good state education.

What it does give people – ever fairly thick people – is a sense of confidence in the rightness of their getting the best jobs and even being born to govern.

I've worked with people educated at public school (and have two uncles who were – and subsequently wrecked a successful business and helped get rid of a load of the inheritance dosh) and it really is little more than that.

Three is it now to get one's A levels?

Depends on one's aptitude.

Yep I did mean private education. I'd agree which is why I put better in quotation marks as there are sadly plenty of people and organisations who assume a private education is better than a public one.
From my albeit limited knowledge the biggest advantage in pure educational terms comes from the smaller class sizes. Which if replicated at state schools would yield similar results.

If private education is better than state-provided education, then it is promoting unequal opportunity.
If private education is not better than state-provided education, then it is pointless, except for the sort of reasons that Mintball has already outlined, to which I would add that, for many, it's a form of social climbing and class-reinforcement so that their children don't have to meet those awful working-class children.

My guess is that it's a bit of both, with some schools actually getting the pick of the crop of teachers.

It's socially divisive, it reinforces class prejudice (both directions) and it's either unfair or no better than state education.
The notion that if one is born into a family that can afford it then one is just lucky is, to me, waffle, there are plenty of talented but less well-off children missing out, that's a waste of talent.

I'd ban it and to hell with the wailing of the already-privileged.

The main issue is when you pay for your kids to go to e.g. Etonyou are not only paying for the education, which could be just as good at the local state school, but also, more importantly, the old boy network.

Personally I would like to see private education banned. If the rich had to send their kids to the same schools as the rest of us then maybe they might be more willing to cough up their taxes.

there are plenty of other course options other than A'Levels.

I went to one of the better state high schools in Leeds - my GCSE maths set had 38 kids in it. in A-Level Maths we didn't even have enough textbooks to go round. I know this is a bit of an extreme example but this just isn't something private schools have to deal with.

I have friends who went to a few different private schools, their average class size was about 10-15, in state schools the class sizes are about 30. Having two to three times as much direct contact time with the must have a massive impact on attainment.

How the did we go from discussing the morals of zero hours contracts, to the quality of education in private and state schools?

You might well be right.

Doesn't everything come back to what that naaughty Yank said - in Britain we don't produce anything (more strictly, enough things) that people want to buy? Those Germans produce things that people want to buy and are willing to pay a premium for because they are pretty well made.

The other night I caught the end of a TV program where someone took his family to live and work in Germany "as Germans" not working for a UK company. The bloke ended up working as an employee on the shop floor in a pencil factory for Faber-Castell. They were actually manufacturing pencils.

Pencils are not high value, high margin products but Faber-Castell make a go of it and can be profitable employing about 900 people in Germany doing so.

The workers were well paid, no zero hour contracts in sight and the business profitable.

Perhaps the way things are done in Germany allows companies like them to survive?

Here is a link to the company which is worth a quick read as it sets out their attitude to its employees across the world:

[url=http://www.faber-castell.co.uk/43201/The-Company/Our-global-commitment/Our-global-commitment/fcv2_index.aspxFaber-Castell[/url

If Faber-Castell were a UK company listed on the stock exchange I reckon ALL production would have been banished to China long ago.

If there was anything left in the UK it would be a few sales staff and the office cleaners (the cleaners on zero hours contracts).

So if we don't produce anything people want to buy it's because in part we have no idea how to keep the production here or no will at the policy level (most likely IMO) to create an environment where a company like Faber-Castell cold thrive.

Not really.
For example, Britain produces a million cars a year, three-quarters of which are exported (despite the recession, more cars were exported in 2012 than [uever[/u before, however you count them, whether as a percentage or empirical numbers) ... that suggests that a) Britain can still manufacture and b) people want to buy them.

The UK could, of course, produce and export a lot more ... but that's not the same as saying that we don't or that the quality isn't good.

In fact, many UK companies are now bringing their manufacturing back to the UK, to keep an eye on quality and to shorten their supply chains.

Also, UK manufacturing, in terms of value, has continued to increase pretty much year-on-year since the end of WWII.
Manufacturing nowadays occupies a smaller space in terms of the overall employment and GDP of the UK, but we must take into account the huge increase in service and financial industries which have grown much faster.

Also, don't forget, back in the old days if you worked in a works canteen, you were classed as working in manufacturing, whereas nowadays that would often be outsourced to a catering company, so you'd be classed as working in catering. Ditto for site security, back-office functions, IT, company pensions, etc etc. Hence the numbers working in "manufacturing" would have shrunk by maybe up to a quarter or a third of the "manufacturing" workforce simply by outsourcing the non-manufacturing non-core functions.
Add to that the increases in productivity via automation and you can see why, although manufacturing output has carried on growing, employment in manufacturing has shrunk as a percentage of the workforce.

So, we [ucan[/u do it and we [udo[/u do it ... but we could do more balance the economy.

Faber Castell are a good example of a Mittelstand company, i.e. a family-owned SME which sees its two-way relationship with its workforce as being vital for productivity, employee loyalty and quality.

When Dyson moved their production to the far east, James Dyson cited his local council's refusal to grant planning permission for an extension to the factory as the reason. Now I may be doing Sir James a great disservice here but if that really was the reason, did he find it impossible to locate suitable premises a little closer than China?

You've possibly picked a bad example as pencil manufacturing for one of the worlds best known brands is Derwent, still manufactured in Cumbria - unfortunately their web site seems to have gone tits up at the moment so I can't check that their manufacturing facility is still based in Cumbria

Quote ="JerryChicken"You've possibly picked a bad example as pencil manufacturing for one of the worlds best known brands is Derwent, still manufactured in Cumbria - unfortunately their web site seems to have gone tits up at the moment so I can't check that their manufacturing facility is still based in Cumbria '" Yup, still made there ... www.pencils.co.uk/

Quote ="JerryChicken"You've possibly picked a bad example as pencil manufacturing for one of the worlds best known brands is Derwent, still manufactured in Cumbria - unfortunately their web site seems to have gone tits up at the moment so I can't check that their manufacturing facility is still based in Cumbria '" Yup, still made there ... www.pencils.co.uk/

Far from being bad, I think it's a great example.

What would be interesting is to compare the two companies in terms of:

Scope of supply

Ownership

Profitability

Number of employees

etc