Over the weekend members of the Labour Party have pledged to abolish OFSTED, the regulatory body in charge of overseeing school standards, abolish private schools, and to seize and “redistribute” investments and properties held by private schools.
The nonsensical proposition will cost taxpayers untold billions of pounds, in addition to causing immense disruption to parents with children in both public and private schools.
As a son of immigrants, having spent my formative years in public and private schools in Britain, I look at Labour’s proposition with horror. Our education system has long been reputable, with students coming from across the world to receive the benefit of our private and public schools. In Beaconsfield, our excellent public and private schools work in tangent to provide the best of education to our children. Indeed, we are most fortunate to be in an area where 94% of our primary school pupils and 81% of our secondary school pupils are attending local schools that are ranked “good” or “outstanding” by OFSTED.
Furthermore, OFSTED provides parents like me with a school’s performance indicator as compared to the national average, preside over a school’s handling of disciplinary issues such as bullying, whilst providing schools with the training they need to improve. As a school governor for a local primary school, I can say that OFSTED ratings and guidance are absolutely crucial in helping us improve and do better for our children.
As a parent myself I understand that it is in nature of parents to want to provide the best within our means for our children. On wanting the best - like many others in Beaconsfield, my two daughters are currently schooled in the very reputable Butlers Court School. I’ve not thought of moving them to private schools, but I can understand that, should circumstances evolve, why I would appreciate at least having the option to send my children to private schools.
Having both institutions available in some ways allows us to have the best of both worlds. If a system works, why break it?
There is a sinister underlying aspect of the Labour Party’s policy announcement – it is not what they claim to be for the benefit of our children. It is their ideologically driven, callous disregard towards property ownership. The seizing of assets does not serve our children – it is another attempt at social engineering.
In the eyes of the Marxists, these fundamental tenets of freedom – of choice, of ownership, of property, will be abolished in favour of the “collective” who we know will be controlled by a select few.
Let's hope that, like all Marxist endeavours, Labour’s plans will fail.
Jackson Ng
