Why is it socially acceptable to write off our national schools system as useless, yet to do similar with the NHS is to risk exile to the outer reaches of Ukip Lalaland?
This phenomenon is even stranger when one considers people’s personal experiences. Down the pub or around the dinner party table, Joe and Jo Bloggs queue up to swap war stories about the impossibility of securing a GP’s appointment or Auntie Mabel’s 27-year wait for a hip replacement.
Conversely, survey after survey finds that pupils and parents overwhelmingly have a great experience of local schools and teachers. Yet you’re considered to be one can short of a six-pack if, as I do, you proclaim “British qualifications are the envy of the world” or “London has one of the best education systems on the planet”.
In terms of public perception, the NHS is destined always to be saintly; education, if not actually damned to the fiery bowels of hell, will always be hanging around in purgatory.
I am not geek enough to undertake a deep analysis of this paradox, although I suspect it probably has something to do with teachers not curing cancer and the fact that education is free in most Western countries while healthcare is not. But although the majority of Brits are unable to see the excellence of education in their own country, the rest of the world can. And it’s acting on it.
International schools are cropping up everywhere. And the crme de la crme are those that market themselves as British, those that import UK teachers, those that teach to an English curriculum and have pupils who take English exams. We’ve reached a point where you could visit just about any city in the world and easily find a class of children taking GCSE maths. In many countries it is as much a status symbol to have your offspring collect three As at A-level as it is to have the latest Porsche on your drive or Rolex on your wrist.
