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Alan Bennett launches fierce attack on private education Alan Bennett launches fierce attack on private education
(about 11 hours later)
Alan Bennett has blasted the very concept of private education in a hard-hitting lecture in which the writer states that "to educate not according to ability but according to the social situation of the parents is both wrong and a waste". Alan Bennett has blasted the private school education system in a hard-hitting lecture in which he argues that "to educate not according to ability, but according to the social situation of the parents, is both wrong and a waste".
"Private education is not fair. Those who provide it know it. Those who pay for it know it. Those who have to sacrifice in order to purchase it know it. And those who receive it know it, or should. And if their education ends without it dawning on them then that education has been wasted," said Bennett in a lecture given at Cambridge University, and printed in the 19 June issue of the London Review of Books. "And to say that nothing is fair is not an answer. Governments, even this one, exist to make the nation's circumstances more fair, but no government, whatever its complexion, has dared to tackle private education." Bennett, who was educated at a grammar school in Leeds, told an audience at Cambridge University: "Private education is not fair. Those who provide it know it. Those who pay for it know it. Those who have to sacrifice in order to purchase it know it. And those who receive it know it, or should. And if their education ends without it dawning on them, then that education has been wasted.
Bennett has never, he said, "been particularly left-wing", but the playwright and author told his audience that he was "happy never to have trod that dreary safari from left to right which generally comes with age, a trip writers in particular seem drawn to, Amis, Osborne, Larkin, Iris Murdoch all ending up at the spectrum's crusty and cliched end". "My objection to private education is simply put. It is not fair. And to say that nothing is fair is not an answer. Governments, even this one, exist to make the nation's circumstances more fair, but no government, whatever its complexion, has dared to tackle private education."
"If I haven't, it's partly due to circumstances," said the writer. "There has been so little that has happened to England since the 1980s that I have been happy about or felt able to endorse. One has only had to stand still to become a radical." Bennett said that he had never "been particularly leftwing", but that he was "happy never to have trod that dreary safari from left to right which generally comes with age, a trip writers in particular seem drawn to, Amis, Osborne, Larkin, Iris Murdoch all ending up at the spectrum's crusty and cliched end".
Telling his audience that "it would be unsurprising if you were to discount these forthright opinions as the rantings of an old man" – Bennett is 80, "an age that entitles one to be listened to though not necessarily heeded" – the playwright suggested not that public schools should be abolished, but that there should be "a gradual reform", beginning "with the amalgamation of state and public schools at sixth-form level". "If I haven't, it's partly due to circumstances," his lecture, printed in the 19 June issue of the London Review of Books, said. "There has been so little that has happened to England since the 1980s that I have been happy about or felt able to endorse. One has only had to stand still to become a radical."
This, he said, "ought to be feasible and hardly revolutionary if the will is there. And that, of course, is the problem." Telling his audience: "It would be unsurprising if you were to discount these forthright opinions as the rantings of an old man," Bennett, who is 80 – "an age that entitles one to be listened to, though not necessarily heeded" – , did not suggest that public schools should be abolished, but that there should be "a gradual reform", beginning "with the amalgamation of state and public schools at sixth-form level". This, he said, "ought to be feasible and hardly revolutionary if the will is there. And that, of course, is the problem."
Private education is not only unfair, according to Bennett; the playwright also suggested it is "not Christian either". "Souls after all are equal in the sight of God and thus deserving of what these days is called a level playing field. This is certainly not the case in education and never has been but that doesn't mean we shouldn't go on trying. Isn't it time we made a proper start?" he asked. Private education is not only unfair, according to the playwright: he also suggested it was "not Christian either". "Souls, after all, are equal in the sight of God and thus deserving of what these days is called a level playing field. This is certainly not the case in education and never has been, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't go on trying. Isn't it time we made a proper start?" he asked.
Bennett himself was offered a place at Sidney Sussex college in Cambridge, after he sat the scholarship exam in history, on a weekend where he first came "across public schoolboys in the mass", and "was appalled". The History Boys, one of his best-known plays, follows a group of grammar-school boys preparing for Oxbridge entrance exams. Bennett himself was offered a place at Sidney Sussex college, Cambridge, after he sat the scholarship exam in history, on a weekend when he first came across "public schoolboys in the mass", and "was appalled". The History Boys, one of his best-known plays, follows a group of grammar-school boys preparing for Oxbridge entrance exams.
The author, who ended up studying at Exeter College in Oxford, finished by comparing the present "stealth[y] dismantl[ing]" of the welfare state to the dissolution of the monasteries, "with profit taking precedence over any other consideration, and the perpetrators today as locked into their ideology and convinced of their own rightness as any of the devout louts who four and five hundred years ago stove in the windows and scratched out the faces of the saints as a passport to heaven". The author studied at Exeter College, Oxford, where he joined the Oxford Revue before first becoming famous as a member of Beyond the Fringe with fellow Oxbridge graduates Dudley Moore, Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller.
In his LRB article Bennett compares the present "stealth[y] dismantl[ing]" of the welfare state to the dissolution of the monasteries, "with profit taking precedence over any other consideration, and the perpetrators today as locked into their ideology and convinced of their own rightness as any of the devout louts who, four and five hundred years ago, stove in the windows and scratched out the faces of the saints as a passport to heaven".