Great Britain’s most elite private schools—Eton College and Rugby School to name two—are often seen as emblematic of the Isles’ long history of socioeconomic stratification and protected privilege. But now some administrators are attempting to change course by making their student bodies a little more diverse.
But as the New York Times reports, Britain’s top independent schools are centuries’ old — institutions wholly inextricable from the nation’s cultural history:
“ Their former students dominate many spheres of British life, and half the members of the cabinet were privately educated, including Prime Minister David Cameron, who attended the nation’s most exclusive academy, Eton College.
Critics blame this system for some of Britain’s social, economic, and racial inequalities; argue that such schools impede mobility; and want them to do more for children from disadvantaged backgrounds to justify the tax breaks they receive.”
Patrick Derham, headmaster of Westminster School and the former recipient of a full scholarship to Rugby, is pushing against this trend “by bringing more students from disadvantaged backgrounds—including young black teenagers—to some of Britain’s most elite places of learning.” After completing his studies at Rugby, Derham continued on at Cambridge University and served as headmaster of Rugby before moving on to Westminster. Since becoming a school administrator, he has attempted to “repay that faith in his potential” and buck against private schools’ homogeneity.
“More and more of us are concerned by this polarization in society,” Derham tells the Times. “There is no point in producing people who have only met people like themselves.”
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