Guernsey Press

A wiser investment than school fees

TIMES are changing in all education systems and indeed they are in GBG.

Published

Currently some Guernsey people struggle to pay fees that total more than £10,000 per year for 14 years at the colleges. Other wealthy people do not struggle.

The end of the 11-plus and selection will result in the effective removal of many intelligent students from the colleges, leaving a limited pool of fee-paying students.

The results of the colleges are sure to fall as the old 11-plus cream-of-the-real-Guernsey-talent gets siphoned off.

The colleges’ ratings, taken from the Telegraph newspaper assessments of private schools, gives Elizabeth College as 157th out of 364 and the Ladies’ College as 165th out of 364.

This is an amazingly good result from such a small pool of people, but it has been achieved by the inclusion of the cream of successful 11-plus students in the past.

That rating will now reduce as our island’s top talent is shifted to the real education system.

An alternative approach:

n Remembering at all times: money does not intelligence buy.

n Instead of paying the £140,000 in college fees, just invest the £10,000 every year into a growth investment fund and when your children reach 18 just give them about £164,000, after wise investments at 3% over 14 years. This will enable them to start up a business, put a deposit on a house or just run away with their true love.

This also means that within the Guernsey education system they have been exposed to the real society and brushed against the cream of intelligence of the island that are now part of the new education system.

The Financial Times Money section of 16 December 2017 suggested that many private schools in the UK are not very good and that this approach of investing the cash each year to be given to a near adult may well be an innovative way to go.

REX FERBRACHE,

Address withheld.