Britain’s school system could learn from France

sir – I have read your recent articles and letters (March 27) on Labour’s mean, short-sighted proposal to impose VAT on school fees – which I am strongly against – some of which mention being able to offset income tax against the fees.

It makes me think of the excellent system in France, where parents choosing to educate their children privately receive the amount from the state that would have been spent if the child had remained in the state system.

I then ask myself why the UK is subject to “envy politics” and, more importantly, what will happen to those children in private education who have special needs.

Marilyn Lee Bowdon, Cheshire

sir – My parents sacrificed much to send me to a private school. While working, I did not earn enough to send my children to private school, but I never thought that the solution to this was class hatred or the tearing down of some of the greatest educational establishments in the world.

The best way to shut down private schools would be to make state schools as good or better than them in every way. This would include instilling them with an ethos of academic excellence, respect, belonging, self-discipline, service, success and teamwork. If this happened, only a fool would pay to go private.

Nothing that the Labour Party is proposing would deliver any of this. What it will do is increase the burden on state education, slice the stateeducation cake more thinly and rip yet more choices out of the hands of the only people who should be making them for children – their parents.

Victor Launert Matlock Bath, Derbyshire