Teacher buyouts
From Mr Tom Burkard Sir: Your leading article (21 April) suggests that the best way to ease the consciences of middle-class parents who opt for independent schools is to issue means-tested vouchers to less wealthy parents. Tory policymakers are sympathetic to the idea in principle, but they have learnt from experience that civil servants — whose empires depend upon the maintenance of the state monopoly — can sabotage vouchers at will. A more promising idea is to allow tax credits to lower-income families for school fees, thereby putting the matter in the hands of the Treasury.
But as the shadow education secretary Theresa May has pointed out, there are very few spare places in independent schools. Supply has not risen to meet demand because planning laws virtually preclude the formation of new schools. Graeme Leach of the Institute of Directors has proposed that teachers be empowered to buy their schools from local authorities. We've tried just about everything else, and by now it should be obvious that our schools will never thrive under our Stalinist system of state control. Middleclass parents with tender consciences should be thinking about freeing other children, rather than enslaving their own.
Tom Burkard
Secretary, The Promethean Trust, Riverside Farm, Easton, Norwich
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