Private schools 'as universities'

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Leading independent schools should set up private universities, the vice-chancellor of the University of East London has suggested.

Prof Michael Thorne said the UK needed more privately-funded universities, because tuition fees and government grants did not generate enough money.

He told the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference many private schools were "global education brands".

Prof Thorne said the United States had far more privately-funded institutions.

The endowments which Ivy League universities such as Harvard enjoyed far outstripped the state funding given to all UK universities, he said.

Our job is to prepare undergraduates Martin Stephen, high master of St Paul's School in London

Prestigious public schools should consider following the American example, where some of the best colleges for courses in business, for example, were run by private institutions.

"Many of you are sitting on global education brands which could be stretched to private universities," he told delegates at an HMC conference.

Eton and Harrow were worldwide school brands.

"It would be an easy stretch, wouldn't it, to go to Eton University?" he suggested.

But independent school head teachers were cautious about the idea.

Martin Stephen, high master of St Paul's School in London, said: "There is a real problem of delusions of grandeur.

"Whether we like it or not we are a support industry. Our job is to prepare undergraduates."