At a family wedding overseas a couple of years ago, I asked my cousin if he had managed to get his child into a good school.

“What do you mean by a good school?” he asked. I explained that in the UK we have something called parental choice. Or rather, we have the right to state a preference over which school our child goes to, based on the school’s results and status within the community.

I told him about Ofsted, catchment areas and how the amount of funding allocated to schools may vary depending on their status, location and how closely they identify with government thinking of the time.

“I see what you mean,” he said. “But we don’t have such a system. Our son just goes to our local school, because all our schools are good.”

What he meant, of course, was that schools in his country are funded equally and resourced according to their needs. They are not subject to political ideology or exposed to constant flux with each new secretary of state.

But his answer floored me, as I had inadvertently described to him an education system where some schools were set up to fail so that others could succeed - as if this was normal and acceptable. 

We must end this complacency

At the same time I realised that, as parents, we’ve become so complacent about thinking of education in terms of exam results, local reputation and Ofsted that we have forgotten the extent to which government policy determines how far our schools - and therefore, children - are allowed to flourish.

The more silent we are, the more we collude with the inequality of opportunity this breeds - just as long as it’s our own child who isn’t missing out.

With the current funding crisis affecting schools, we must end that complacency. Quite how we do this is open to discussions we need to have with heads and teachers, but speaking up in support of them and the challenges they face would be a start.

The recent report published jointly by the NUT and ATL teaching unions into the “cost-cutting culture” in education cannot fail to affect all of our children in some way.

The findings are extremely worrying. From reduced curricula and larger class sizes to heads asking parents for donations, the current funding situation is as bad as it’s ever been, and probably much worse.

I cannot ever remember hearing of parents being asked to send their children in with toilet roll, or of advertising space being sold on schools’ walls.

At least the ads will fill the gap where Year 8’s art display used to hang, because the prospect of a reduced curriculum will be particularly worrying to anyone who has “arty”, musical or creative kids, or just wants them to have a rounded education.

Shutting doors of opportunity

The days when such talents could flourish as a natural part of school life are fast disappearing, consigned to irrelevance firstly by the government’s English Baccalaureate policy, and now with the funding crisis, as timetables are restricted to a narrow list of subjects for financial expediency.

How reprehensible for the government of a nation that once led the world in design, music and fashion to justify shutting the doors of opportunity with platitudes about efficiencies. If we are not to invest in our children’s future and teach them what it is to be human, then what’s the point - of anything, really?

Those parents who can afford to pay for music or drama lessons will, of course, do so, because they can. But what about the “just about managing” families (JAMs) and others who can’t?

Are their children to be denied opportunities to explore their talents, and merely force-fed a bread-and-water diet of subjects deemed appropriate by ministerial whim?

If the answer is yes, then we should all be outraged. What a scandalous waste of our nation’s potential at a time when the government expects our economy to become more self-reliant.

Kevin Courtney, of the NUT, said parents could no longer sit back and accept a “bargain-basement approach to education”. He is right. We need to start asking questions about how our taxes are being spent.

The concept of a state education system, paid for through taxation, is becoming a myth, as is any pretence of equality of opportunity.

Still, there’s always parental choice, right?

Dorothy Lepkowska is a freelance journalist and writer. And a parent.

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