Seriously, what is the problem with Manchester Grammar School deciding that its pupils will sit the IGCSE rather than the GCSE? Why is it the business of anyone other than the school, the fee-paying parents, and their children?

I have no specific opinion on either, other than that a general view that most exams sit at the bottom of the educative pile when it comes to facilitating real learning and critical thinking. After seeing these GCSE papers, I think that if my child was in a formal education system, I’d be inclined to go for any alternative that was available. However, my children will not be forced to take any such exams, international or otherwise, unless they deem it appropriate for their own needs and requirements, so this part of the debate is somewhat, ah, academic.

What really cranked me up today was the wider debate on whether it’s “right” for Manchester Grammar to do such a thing, thus causing serious questions to be asked about the quality of the GCSEs that most other children in this country are subjected to.  I can’t get his details off the Radio 4 website at the moment, but some moron was arguing that Manchester Grammar School had not considered that it “had a duty to the sector as whole”, presumably a duty to ensure that the education these independently educated children receive is as shit as everybody else’s.

This moron ignored the blindingly obvious – the clue that is patently evident in the phrase “independently educated”. It’s precisely because of dissastisfaction  with our state’s lowest common denominator approach (the “level playing field” means that it’s shit, but it’s the same shit for everyone at least) that independent schools exist in the first place. It’s what happens in, you know, a market environment.  And, despite what the stalwarts of our socialist state education system would have us believe, parents and children are actually the paying customers of such a system - and as such, they would prefer to have real choice. Bishop Hill expresses this perfectly.  

As an individual, a parent and a business owner, I want (in fact I demand) equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. When the state thrusts equality upon us, they should not ever confuse this with being fair. Manchester Grammar School has absolutely no duty to the sector as a whole; it continues to exist in real market forces because it offers something that the sector as a whole does not, and parents who send their children there pay for the privilege. In fact, they pay twice. So I really don’t want to listen to some statist, socialist little do-gooder talking about how unfair the world already is, when they would seek to make it unfairer still by taking yet more choice away from everyone in the name of equality. That, dear reader, sucks.

UPDATE: The man in question is none other than Dennis Richards, headteacher of - you guessed it! - a state school, in Harrogate. He actually had this to say:

"The last thing on Earth this country needs in the current situation... is to create yet a further market system with our education and particularly our exam system."

Umm, so let me get this right, Dennis. You seek to eradicate competition and favour a state monopoly on something as individual and intrinsic as learning, in order to further homogenise our future workforce to the lowest possible level, so we all end up economically screwed in the long term? Successful people create wealth for society as well as themselves, Dennis, but hell - let's all go down together. He goes on to say:

"MSG, fine school that it is, has an enormous responsibility to the rest of the sector and that would be true of independent schools as a whole. They have the same - in fact they have greater privileges than we have - and they have a responsibility to the sector as a whole."

Screw you, Dennis! Independent schools have no such responsibility, enormous or otherwise. They have exempted themselves from such responsibility by becoming independent, with all of the hard work that this entails. Their "privileges" are entirely of their own earning, and these schools exist entirely on their own merits, because of how well they are able to differentiate themselves from what passes for education elsewhere. Even in this "current situation", successful independent schools are continuing to thrive without being endlessly propped up by the state with taxpayers' money, no matter how shameful their educational offerings. So don't be utterly absurd and expect them to - nay, demand that they - further support your own parasitic existence.