ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the 868 respondents from fee-paying schools in the sample for the survey, and relevant stories from the follow-up interviews. It discusses the families involved, describing how they go about deciding to use the private sector, and then selecting a school within it. The chapter looks at the reasons they report for making these choices, and the third one examines these reasons in light of the characteristics of the schools chosen. A typical family using fee-paying education could be described as well-educated, living in the suburbs and with a parent in a non-manual occupation. The gender breakdown of the children in fee-paying schools is interesting, in that there are a much larger number of girls. Most families using a fee-paying school, seriously consider between two and three schools before making a choice, which is significantly more than the average for the whole sample.
