New research has concluded Catholic and Independent schools do add value to students’ tertiary scores.
Oprah Winfrey’s academy for girls in South Africa is well-resourced and produces good results. These factors mean it is in the minority.
Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
Parents want to know how much they need to spend to secure a good education - and job prospects - for their children. But is it as simple as balancing your own books and ignoring the bigger picture?
Nope, not nearly urban enough.
from www.shutterstock.com.au
The quality of a public school is in location, location, location.
Girls head home from school in a Kenyan slum. Many parents believe private schooling will help their children get ahead in a tough economy.
Noor Khamis/Reuters
Kenya’s public schools are scoring a failing grade. Now several pieces of government policy are threatening low-cost private schools’ ability to fill the gap.
Studies showing there are no academic benefits of private schooling don’t tell us why.
AAP/Daniel Munoz
A number of studies in recent years have shown there is no academic advantage to private schools, so parents weighing up which school to send their child to need to look at the evidence.
Gaining entry into selective schools is highly competitive.
High school boy from www.shutterstock.com
The parents of high achieving students often think of selective entry schools as the ideal option for their child. But do these schools churn out well-rounded young adults, or students trained for exams and little else?
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has ceased funding private schools to ensure funds go to those who need it most. Why can’t Australia do the same?
AAP
When the new crop of MPs take their seats after the May election, many may know each other from their days at private school or Oxbridge. A new study, published by the Sutton Trust, analysed the education…
James Blunt is upset. He has objected – in terms neither civil, nor particularly well-argued – to the suggestion from shadow culture secretary, Chris Bryant, that people from working-class backgrounds…
The most prestigious schools get top marks because they have had the invisible slave of disadvantaged schools working for them.
Flickr/Montgomery County Plan
Across Australia Year 12 students are collectively holding their breaths to see what results they’ve achieved and, consequently, what their futures hold. Only hours after their release, many secondary…
The headmaster of Tristram Hunt’s former school in Hampstead has given him a telling off.
John Stillwell/PA Wire
The furore over the suggestion by shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt that private schools need to contribute more to state education or face the removal of their tax breaks has been predictable…
Both parties are making key election promises about education, but they’re not promising the right things.
AAP
The Victorian Labor opposition’s recent promise to change the state’s licence plates to “Victoria: the education state” is emblematic of the way both Labor and the Napthine Coalition government have made…
The domination of top British universities by people who have attended private schools remains controversial. Defenders of the status quo would argue that successful applicants to Russell Group universities…
Unfair advantage?
tutoring by v.schlitching/Shutterstock
Private tutoring is used by many parents around the world to supplement their children’s education and boost their chances of success at school. In England, several surveys have estimated the prevalence…
You’ll be seeing less of us.
Dominic Lipinski/PA Archive
Ofsted’s chief inspector Michael Wilshaw is right to claim that his proposals for the future of school inspection set out: “some of the most far-reaching reforms to education inspection in the last quarter…
Private primary kids are being squeezed out of public secondary schools.
Dai Kurokawa/EPA
Kenya’s education sector is in crisis. Reasoned planning and concerted efforts from the government and the private sector will be required to save it. Despite more than a decade of free primary school…
When deciding where to send your kids to school, it’s about more than just the money.
AAP
Two recent pieces published on The Conversation (by Barbara Preston and Jennifer Chesters) argue that parents might be wasting their money paying for a non-government school education. They contend that…
Etonians are waiting in line for their place at Oxbridge.
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The UK’s most prestigious universities are repeatedly accused of discriminating against disadvantaged students in favour of those who are deemed to have a social advantage, and particularly those from…
State school kids do better at uni than private schooled kids with the same tertiary entrance score.
AAP
State school graduates do better at university than private school graduates with the same end-of-school tertiary entrance score. That’s the clear finding in a number of Australian studies since the 1980s…