It’s James here – scholars of WHYS cameos will know I’ve occasionally sat in the presenter’s chair in the past (I’ve posted the evidence below :-)).
At the moment i’m working as a reporter for World Service, and I’m wondering if the WHYS community can help with a story i’m looking into. I’m asking whether financial problems are forcing parents to take their kids out of private schools and put them into the public system.
One person who has been affected is Nikki, who wrote in to the BBC Website:
“We recently had to take my daughter out of private education due to my husband being made redundant. This caused a massive emotional strain on all of us in the family, especially my daughter who after being in the private sector for almost 8 years had to make new friends and get to grips with state education.”
Have you had to take your child out of private education because you can’t afford it any more? How has this decision affected you and your kids? Do you have children who are about to start school, are you opting for the public system for financial reasons? I’d love to hear your stories.
And now one from the WHYS vaults, a balmy night in Beijing almost exactly a year ago, the eve of the Olympics on the roof of Fish Nation Cafe.
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BBC World Have Your Say 
If more and more parents have no other choice to move their children from private to public schools, that reveals the weakness of both systems: the private being dicriminatory, and the public being poor quality. That is obviously known by politicians; who are still ignoring the problem.or couldn’t find a solution….and if this generation of leaders haven’t done anything to fix this; the coming one, the next policy makers will certainly do something. why ? because a wide number of them will have personnally suffered and witnessed the desastrous consequences of Rich vs Poor education. Why not simply Good education, funded through innovative and clever mechanisms, efficient and cost effective…based on motivation and Merit rather than bank account.
Not really, Since the cost of Private Education is so expensive….
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James: Yes, I remember you days at WHYS…..Hope you are enjoying the time over on World Service….
~Dennis Junior~
Education has fast become an ugly commodity, tradable at all levels with MONEY.
Private education, in particular, is mushrooming at every corner of the globe. The ulterior motive does not appear to be providing children with an alternative or better education as often claimed, but just to extract more quick bucks out of them.
Not only that, most educational institutions have failed to educate the learners per se, they only provide some rudiment knowledge or raw skills at most.
Isn’t that SAD?
(btt1943)
The public schools in our area are so drug infested there is no way in good conscious I could send my daughter to public school. We will work and save and go without extras before we take her out, and even then we will home school her just to keep her out of the public school system here. Even the teachers in the schools around here drink alchol and smoke marijuana. Just crazy!!
We have not been affected by financial problems yet but even if we are we will never send her to public school.
I’ve never been able to send my kids to private school. My son gets special education at the public high school and so far I have been satisfied that he has made all the progress he can, but of course that has required a lot of involvement from me and communication between me and his teachers. My daughter is in college now, but I did always stress to her that the education really depends on the student. I told her the teacher gets paid whether you learn or not, so it behooves her to educate herself further than the school goes. Luckily, she has been very self-directed in regards to education and received enough scholarships to cover college. And it would just be plain foolish not to do well in college, you are paying money to learn!