28.05.03

DAILY TELEGRAPH

PRIVATE SCHOOLING FOR FREE

by

RICHARD DELL

Picture your local school. It is vibrant, happy, filled with excited teachers and motivated children. The resources are first rate. Computers abound; the library is overflowing with books and the governors are looking to purchase new playing fields.

So is this your local private school? Yes. And is this yet another school that is too expensive for ordinary people to send their children? No. This school charges no fees. It is entirely free: right down to the books and trips.

Sound too good to be true? Well, it shouldn't.

This could be done. We could create the best independent education for all our children entirely free of charge. And how this could be done is wonderfully simple.

I am head of Newton Prep, a new London prep school. We were founded in 1991 by Dr Walji, a man dedicated to education. His family trust provided the financial backing to put together a remarkable enterprise. We have brilliant resources, together with vibrant, committed and energised staff. We have children who love to come to school, who learn well, behave well and are wonderfully happy. In other words, we have what should be every child's birthright. Yet, for the great majority of our pupils—we actually do offer means-tested scholarships from the age of four for some twenty of our pupils—we also charge high fees.

Having run Newton Prep for ten years, I know how much it costs to create schools like ours. And I know how much it costs, day by day to run schools like ours. Let us say that in London it would take up to £10 million to buy a site, to build or refurbish and to totally equip the place with everything the school needs: from computers and toilets down to white boards and pencils. And then let us say that every year, to pay for salaries and books and power etc., we would need another £2.5 million.

That is a lot of money. Most of us do not have anywhere near that sort of money. Yet together we have. And there are countless organisations that have far more. Want to create a state of the art independent prep school that is entirely free and that is in your neighbourhood? Then you need up to £50 million, depending on your local property prices. That is £10 million to cover the start up costs, and the remaining £40 million to provide enough annual income to cover all future running costs. Treble this figure if you want to create a top-flight secondary school.

Now what is £50 million to our friends in the city? Why could not Sainsburys and Tescos stop fiddling with computer vouchers at their checkouts and start creating a school or two every year? We have the wealth in this country to set up a hundred schools a year; possibly far more. Initially, we could site them in needy areas. With every new school that is created: independent, setting standards free of government interference, those areas would begin to be transformed. Within ten or twenty years we could see the education of our country rejuvenated.

So do not complain that governments are getting it wrong with our education system. They should not be running it anyway. Stop whinging and start doing. We can revolutionise education in our country. With the right tax breaks we could get three schools for the price of two. Tescos and Sainsburys (who should certainly understand the logic of three for the price of two) could undoubtedly create their own schools: one or two a year at least. And they can name them after themselves if they like. I can guarantee that all the ‘Sainsburys' Free Schools' will be flourishing generations after Sainsburys has gone the way of all commercial enterprises. And as for the likes of you and me, we could pay into a trust just a few pounds a week and we could create fifty schools a year. It is only a pound per week per person . Manchester United and Arsenal could create a few on their own; so could the combined stores of almost every High Street in our land.

Some of our greatest schools exist because individuals rather than governments invested in education. Four of our leading public schools have just announced a return to their founders' ideals with regards to means-tested scholarships; in other words providing the best education for the neediest of pupils. My own childhood memories reverberate to the names of sixteenth-century benefactors being read out at our annual Founders' Day. Wake up, industry and commerce! This is your chance for immortality.

With every free independent school that we created now, the education in our country would be energised. And with each and every one of those schools, as year by year they came into being, our tax burden would be lightened. Imagine it: a vibrant and independent and entirely free education system for all of our children, and far less tax to pay for all of us adults.

Want to picture your local hospital next?