Privately-educated children (and their parents) hoard social capital – This doesn’t appear to be that much of an issue in Wales itself, but at the UK level, those who’ve attended fee-paying mainstream private schools (confusingly named “public schools”) often dominate professional and managerial positions (such as politics, journalism, law, academia, medicine, the arts and creative sectors such as advertising and architecture) compared to their share of the population.

The Social Mobility Commission’s 2019 report “Elitist Britain”² found that 39% of the “professional elites” attended an independent school, even though only 7% of all students attended such a school. A further 20% of elites went to a (selective) grammar school, compared to 5% of the school population.

Private school attendees are also far more likely to have studied at an “elite” university, with around half (49%) attending a Russell Group university and around half of those (24%) attending either Oxford or Cambridge (“Oxbridge”). 29% of MPs attended a private school and 24% went to Oxbridge.

If one group “hoards” positions of power, wealth and influence then the people making those decisions are less likely to “know how the other half live”. It makes social mobility – the ability for people to move up a social class or make a better life for themselves based on their abilities alone – much more difficult. Access to private education may well be one of the reasons why that’s the case.

Are private schools value for money? – Flipping the above on its head, parents might be wasting their money sending their children to private schools. Look at the untold disaster private schools and elite universities have unleashed on us over the last 30-40 years.

A capable student should be able to get straight As at a state school. Private school is just as much about buying access to higher social networks and instilling (over)confidence than it is about the quality of the education. While they provide a leg-up, private schools don’t quite have the same status they used to.

They’re supposed to educate the best of the best. What we’ve got is cruelty, incompetence, base populism, warmongering and foreign policy blunders of historic proportions. If it’s that bad amongst the politicians who’ve gone through the private school system, then we can only imagine how bad things have got in high finance, the civil service, the media and the judiciary.

That said, at least 6 sitting MSs³ have been wholly or partially privately educated, while most are university-educated. There’s a lot of talk about quotas and fair representation at the Senedd, but the current Senedd remains unrepresentative of the population in terms of class and education, let alone other categories.

A ban on mainstream private schools would probably have little impact in Wales – The proportion of the school population in Wales who attended an independent school at the start of January 2023 was relatively small at a minimum of 2.1%⁴, which is less than half the UK figure (~7%).

A sizable proportion of the independent schools in Wales are special schools too.

So abolishing mainstream private schools (“public schools”) shouldn’t put that much strain on the state sector. The projection is for the number of school-age children in Wales to fall by over 67,000 by 2039⁵ due to demographic changes – and that doesn’t include all the surplus spaces that already exist.

Denying parental choice – This is one of the core arguments against a ban. While there’s no explicit right to private education, in principle, parents should be allowed to send their children to whatever school they want as long as the school is properly regulated.

A ban on private schools might conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights Article 8 (the right to family life) and the First Protocol Article 2 (right to education, specifically the “right of parents to ensure….education and teaching conform with their own religious and philosophical convictions”).

Even in Wales, private schools rank towards the top in terms of performance in external exams. So it’s understandable that well-off families might seek to give their children a further advantage by sending them to one of those schools, instead of risking it at the local comp with a variable track record.

Private schools have other clear advantages over state schools. They usually have smaller class sizes and higher staff:student ratio⁶. There’s also a perception – true or not – that they commit far more time and resources towards extracurricular activities compared to state schools.

Not all private and independent schools are for “toffs” – As noted, there’s a sizable number of children with additional learning needs (many special schools are independent – at least 36 according to Estyn). Some military families may send their children to a boarding or day private school under the continuity of education allowance.

Perhaps Wales’ most well-known private school – Atlantic College – was founded on internationalist principles, having educated numerous future politicians and alike. So in that respect, it does (sort of) add to Wales’ “soft power”.

Would abolition be effective? – There are always ways around the rules. The obvious option would be for parents to simply send their children out of Wales to a private school in England, Scotland or elsewhere. No government would be able to ban that.

Also, the wealthiest parents could simply move to the catchment area with the best state schools (as happens to an extent now). Those schools would eventually become oversubscribed – assuming they don’t have a large number of surplus spaces.

Also, abolishing private schools wouldn’t mean a ban on private tuition. In some cases, private tuition may help students – or those with mild learning disabilities – who need extra help to get a good passing grade at GCSE or A-Level.