Labour won big in 2024. The VAT on Public (AKA private) schools will happen as a matter of time. (Although, U-turns are not uncommon for the UK government) This will cause a lot of changes as schools fees are significant expenditure and 20% on top in a Cost of Living Crisis and high recent inflation will hit many households. I want to write my thoughts on this matter.

Democratic process – live with it

The impact and fallout from this policy will be big. Firstly, I want to write what I think are the values that one pays for in private education. The assumption is that private schools are generally smaller than state schools in terms of class sizes and better funded. Then I will conclude with my personal thoughts.

• More educational resources, more teachers’ attention, more subject choices, more equipment to pupil ratio.
• More controlled environment, less pupils so behaviours can be more aligned to the school’s values, bullying may seem less prevalent.
• More efficient study time, each lesson may start more promptly, less children in a class means the teacher is likely to be in more control and start the lesson more promptly and the children may be more settled and attentive for longer, due to a more controlled environment.
• Social Capital – the connections and alumni provide a unique social capital that is very difficult to put a value over time. School alumni groups can be strong in some cases.

The four points are what I think the money is spent on. I think the first 3 points Labour will be able to equalise to a degree by throwing resources at the state education sector. Labour’s plan is to raise the money from the VAT of the private school sector. Undoubtedly, a lot of parents will change schools from private to state, so the overall benefit will be diluted to an extent. This will depend on the efficiency and effectiveness of the state system.

However, impact of the VAT policy on the fourth point, Social Capital, from going to a private school will be interesting. I think there are a broadly 3 categories of parents. 1. Some parents will switch as described by the previous paragraph. 2. Some parents will plough through despite the rise and make it work or moving down the tier of private schools and 3. the remaining parents are likely to be not bothered by the rise. Therefore, the Social Capital will be even more exclusive to those who persist with private education. The Social Capital is likely to be stemmed from their parents. The difference in Social Capital between State and Private will remain. Labour will make private education even more exclusive because they forced out the first group. It is likely that Labour MPs will be able to persist with private education for their kids. I do think it is important for them to be transparent, otherwise, one may feel there is a conflict of interests, i.e. use populist policy to consolidate power, while making private education less affordable, and since they are in power, they are in a more robust financial position to send their kids to private schools. MPs have more avenues to submit expenses than PAYE. Labour will achieve their socialist approach of making everyone equal and them more equal.

The second and third groups of parents are what Labour appears to be banking on to be the majority of parents for the policy to work. The best case would be for children to stay in the private sector pay the VAT and not burden the state sector. We will only find out the percentages of each group for certain when the mud hits the fan.

The people have spoken, and this is the way. I look forward to the democratic process to working through and I think there may be an increased demand for private tuition. A larger state school class moving at one pace relative to the National Curriculum will not be “optimised” for every child. Some children will find the progress too slow, and lose interests. Some children will struggle to keep up, and lose motivation. I looked at how competitive the King’s Scholarship is, if you are from certain private schools then your percentage of success can immediately improve. Therefore, it may impact this project as more state school students want to improve their academic level to “King’s Scholarship” level.

In conclusion

This is just another policy from another government. I think it may work, but the Social Capital aspect, E.g. going to Eton increases your chances of being Prime Minister, may become even more exclusive and as a result more valuable. At BE a Scholar Tuition, we already moved from being an academic challenge (i.e. competitive in King’s Scholarship) to focused on objectives to succeed in that first interview, and now with an additional objective to build the social capital… but how?