Surely Ruth Kelly would only be a hypocrite if she was saying people shouldn't use private education or that state education was as good as going private. Clearly this is not her position and nor is it the position of the majority of left of centre activists who long ago accepted private education as part of the landscape.
What doesn't feel 'right' about this in the traditional Labour ranks is that a Labour ministers's (everyone expects it of the Tories) financial privilege is being used to give a child an educational advantage.
The way to address this is to make state funding per capita the same as private education. This is something this government aspires to (as Gordon Brown stated in his budget). State education has improved under Labour and continues to improve. What this decision tells us is that state education still has a long way to go.
I think it's a bit more complex than a minister giving advantage to their child by going private, given that we are talking about a child with educational needs.
ReplyDeleteI did a more in depth evaluation on my site if you're interested.