ABSTRACT
In this book the extent and nature of private schooling in ten industrial countries has been described. The accounts that have been provided make it immediately obvious that there is considerable diversity in the ways in which different societies finance and provide education for those of compulsory school age. The most obvious difference is in the size of the private sector in relation to the state sector where, in the countries discussed in this book, the range is from 4 per cent in Scotland (less than 3 per cent in Wales) to about 70 per cent in The Netherlands. Such an enormous variation in the proportion of private-sector schools makes it clear that there is nothing inevitable about the nature of the organizational structure which any particular society has chosen. The current temporary balance between the different forms of provision is the result of a series of historical compromises, achieved over the last century or more, between the state and the various other secular and religious providers. The balance is subject to modification as the result of changing social, economic, and political pressures.
