private schools

Having experienced both ordinary private and public schools and have close association with a top of the range private school I can see where Mark Latham is coming from. The top private schools are virtually the equivalent of what is known in Europe as ' finishing schools'. They have gone way beyond an education establishment and a large part of the curriculum in and out of hours consists of everything from extreme sports to full theatre productions. The IT departments rival some universities and so on, which results in repeating the same in university. What we have is overkill in education because the funds are there and a spill over into social funtimes. This could probably be excused if the majority of the leaders of the country were produced from these establishments, but they are not. If government funds are reduced it will not effect the education side of these schools but more likely the extra curricula activities.