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UK PM’s old school launches drive to narrow rich-poor gap
LONDON, May 2, 2020 (BFF/AFP) – Britain’s Eton College has announced a o100
million ($125 million, 113-million-euro) drive to improve educational
opportunity after growing evidence the coronavirus outbreak was hitting rich
and poor differently.
Headmaster Simon Henderson said there was “no doubt” the global pandemic
was widening existing inequality, and public and private bodies with means
needed to help tackle it.
Britain’s Office for National Statistics on Friday said people in more
deprived areas of England were twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as in
more affluent locations.
The Sutton Trust, which promotes social mobility through education, has
said private school pupils were twice as likely to take part in online
lessons every day during the lockdown as their state school counterparts.
Eton, near Windsor, west of London, has become a byword for elitism and
charges more than o42,000 in fees per year. Old boys include Prime minister
Boris Johnson, and princes William and Harry.
But in a video message this week, Henderson said the COVID-19 crisis, which
has led to more than 27,000 deaths in Britain, would be a “trigger for
profound change” similar to that after the last two world wars.
“A national crisis shines an unforgiving light on the unfairness of its
impact on different people,” he noted, particularly low-paid key workers.
“It’s much, much harder if you’re poor,” he said.
Eton’s contribution to redressing the balance, he said, would be to spend
“at least o100 million” on narrowing the gap.
The money, half of which would come from fund-raising, would go towards
attracting at least 140 pupils from vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds
on full scholarships by 2025.
It will also include developing and extending its online education platform
to the state sector, invest in new courses and make them permanently
available for free online.
The school, which is run as a charity, would seek new partners in the state
sector, particularly in inner-city areas, he added.
Henderson described the programme as “a fundamental change of gear by
Eton”, which was founded by king Henry VI in 1440, and the “right thing” to
do.
“It is a right example to set our boys. It is right ambition to set our
staff. It is a right development of our charitable goals and it is a right
contribution to our national need,” he added.
BSS/AFP/MRU/1819hrs