The TES has today reported of Professor James Tooley’s (of Newcastle University and chair of Omega Schools in Ghana and Empathy Learning in Hyderabad) suggestion that a low-cost, bare-bones model of independent education could be run in the UK for fees of as little as £2,000 per year.
Professor Tooley made these claims speaking at last weekend’s Festival of Education at Wellington. He suggested that costs could be cut by employing young but enthusiastic teachers, increasing use of technology to reduce staffing costs, increasing class sizes and even allowing commercial sponsorship of facilities, “such as soap companies advertising in school toilets”.
When put in context alongside the government’s significant reduction of investment in the Building Schools for the Future, and high profile political campaigning for independent free schools and increased numbers of schools converting to academy status, the prospect of a school group offering truly independent education at this low price is likely to appeal to many.
However, the realities of the matter may be somewhat different, particularly when focussing on the idea that larger classes could provide an opportunity to reduce fees, with the implicit notion that these larger classes would not spark a decline in the attractiveness of such schools.
This sits well alongside research from McKinsey & co published in How the World’s Best Performing School Systems come out on Top (2008), which shows clear evidence that small classes make very little difference to pupil attainment, especially compared to the seismic difference that pedagogy makes: “The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers”, writes the report.
Despite this, though, there can be little doubt that class sizes are important to parents – the buyers who would need to be convinced of Professor Tooley’s model. At mtm we regularly undertake parental satisfaction surveys for our clients examining, amongst other things, reasons why parents chose that school. The most recent 55 surveys of independent school buyers shows that ‘small class sizes’ are the top influencer over parental decision making (albeit in equal first place with ‘ethos’ and ‘quality of teaching’).
Our research shows class size is among the most important factors in choosing a school for parents
So what does this mean? There is a clear need for schools to cut costs if they are to retain parents, many of whom are concerned about their ability to continue paying rapidly rising fees. There is similarly little doubt that a higher pupil : teacher ratio would go some significant way towards cutting such costs. But if doing so alienates your existing buyers, or they feel that value for money is declining, might it be a risk too far?
This is where a sound and integrated research, communications and school marketing strategy comes in. Any new schools following such a low-cost model would first carefully assess the market place and quality of competition, both from independent and state education providers. Survey or street research should be undertaken to understand parental priorities, socio-economic analysis to understand the social make-up of the catchment area is key and, of course, clear and effective school marketing is a must…
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