We are considering paying for our son's secondary education. Neither of us has any experience of the private school system. We know that there are good state schools locally, but we cannot be sure of getting a place in them.

Two of our friends have changed tack at the last minute and sent their older children to private schools because they were refused places at their preferred state secondary school. They panicked, only to be told a few weeks ago, and too late, that their children could have a place at the state school they wanted in the first place. When you hear stories like this it removes all confidence in the state selection system. You might have to fork out for a private education, but at least you know where you stand.

Dennise, Chester, UK

What it is taking far too long for people to realise is that schools are the problem. They are an out of date Victorian concept. Our modern world and behaviors mean they do not work. Time is well overdue to close the lot. Make parents responsible for education of their children, from a multitude of sources, a few may use school like facilities. However like the open University for higher education, now with internet and multi channel TV real education is better delivered individually directly. All sort of oganisations and companies could offer lessons, courses, like museums to professional sports clubs. An hour's one on one tuition a day is worth a week in a school class. Provide the current spend on education as a voucher/currency to parents that can only be spent on educational services.

Education is continuing to get worse, tinkering with the failed concept for a modern world will not ever change this. Schools are the problem.

JamesStGeorge, London, England

Chinese education is great different from that of the UK,as I see it,most of the chinese parents consider that the state education is better than private schooling,apart from certain millionaires.People call that "royalty school".

xlttap, Nanchang,jiangxi province, China

I am amongst those who are considering sending my son to a private school. My reason is that despite living within site of two good schools, their policies of drawing tiny catchments to allow the maximum extent of selection means there is a risk of my son being placed in a poor school some distance from my home.

This has happened to an acquaintance nearby who now must travel some distance with her two newborns to deliver and collect her child from school whilst children from out of the area take up local places.

This is too much of a risk, so we will be paying for certainty as well as a system which accommodates the needs of parents in the hours they offer (as well as the lack of inconveniences like "in service training days").

My preference would be that all schools, including faith schools, must draw first from a catchment and that every home should be in at least one catchment, the remaining places being made available to those out of the catchment giving planning certainty.

Colin, London, UK

John, Manchester

You're right. In fact my 4 kids were educated privately in the UK 'BB' - before Blair! My point was the UK education system was already well into decline before New Labour and because more people could afford it they'd already started to spend money on private schooling. Maybe things are even worse now than when I was 'involved'.

Nev, Rudkøbing, Denmark

Britain’s military commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq may account for a surge in the number of Armed Forces families sending children to private schools.
Indeed, subsidised too.

J FLEMING, peterborough, cambs

Remember also that ten years ago Blair claimed that 'Education, education, education' were his top priorities. His failures in this key area have been spectacular; exams have been dumbed down, illiteracy has risen, school discipline has broken down and as a direct result parents are making financial sacrifices to keep their children out of Labour's State schools.
Labour will claim thay have improved schools but this is typical of their ' style over substance' rhetoric. Reality is that parents are opting OUT of State schools and INTO fee-paying schools. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Rick, London, England

My son, whose mother is a native French-speaker, got an A* in French GCSE. The same summer I asked him to write a postcard in French to his grandmother. It was so badly spelled I had to rewrite it for him. Thereupon I refused to let my other son do GCSE languages, on the old-fashioned principle of "you either do a thing properly or not at all".

Michael Lomax, Brussels

michael lomax, Brussels,

Like everything else with this government - falling standards, bureacracy, hypocrisy, creeping privatisation and political correctness.

Having two children in full time education throught this administration, I would contend that it is not about money.

John of Manchester hits the nail on the head when he talks about lack of discipline. From the time that my son started his secondary school in 1998 to my daughter's time now at the same school, the standard of discipline has fallen through the floor and not just among the children.

The 'teachers', a term I use advisedly, are themselves ill disciplined, ill equipped to teach and don't seem to care or treat the kids with respect either. The turnover of staff is huge, not least because many of them are either Eastern Europeans who do not speak the language but have to be given a job as per EEC rules, or Antipodeans here on an extended holiday just earning some money by teaching to have a good time and keep themselves solvent.

edwardingle, chesham, bucks

State education has been in decline in the UK since Labour's politically-motivated abolition of most grammar schools in the 60's, when more state-educated children went to the top universities than do today, even after 10 years of Blairism.

What the current GCSE figures for state schools don't reveal is the huge number of parents having to provide additional private teaching for their state-educated children, thereby subsidising both the system and the results.

As for the curriculum itself, the way passes are being faked is quite astonishing. In English, children no longer read books, they do coursework on a small segment of a book, watch a film based on it (Austen, Shakespeare), have their essays massaged by the teacher over a period of weeks, and get an A*. They don't read the whole book or anything else by the author. They are getting A* results for literature while effectively illiterate. How do I know? This is my son's current experience at his grammar school.

Martin, London,