ABSTRACT
Politicians and policy-makers tend to hold very firm opinions about private schools. They are either ‘for’ or ‘against’ with little room for compromise, and political debate on the private schools has often been conducted in these simplistic terms. Polemic is more common than informed argument. On the one side are seen the strong supporters of private education, who believe that the freedom to be able to choose the kind of education that parents want for their children is one of the basic rights of a democratic society. They believe that the existence of the private sector encourages a healthy diversity of provision of education, and competition in the market-place will ensure that the quality of education provided remains high. They claim that parents should be able to spend their money on schooling for their children in exactly the same way that they spend money on holidays, homes or cars.
