Is it only in South Africa that state schools are failing......

Same goes for my GC's primary school - OFSTED, 'outstanding' . And the nearby High School where my DiL teaches has a almost as good an OFSTED report. I know my state education was excellent both at school and at University and my DC were pretty well served too. I was very happy with both the schools of which I was a governor. And I'm not the complacent type.

delete very in first line.

I reckon my daughter is getting value for money at her very Scottish primary school. I also reckon she'll get value for money at the high school she starts at in August as I have only heard good reports about it. I reckon I and my siblings got good value for money from the schools and universities we attended (they had their strengths and weaknesses, but doesn't everything?). I reckon my parents got good value for money out of the state system schools and universities they attended. My nephews and nieces seem to have got good value for money out of their schools and universities.

Somehow I find it hard to believe that my extended family is unusual in this.

We don't seem to be getting value for money, then, Jess!

Of course, same initials but different order!

I meant the European Court of Human Rights

Has no one else ever heard of it?

Our GDP is about 6 times that of South Africa and their population is nearly as big as ours. We spend the same % of our GDP on education as RSA. So according to my quick calculation, rounding the figures, we are spending about 5 times as much actual money on education as they do.
Ask anyone who has worked in schools for 15 years and they will tell you that there are still lavish amounts of money given to them, compared to what they had under Thatcher and Major. Although budgets are about to decline.

Do you mean EHRC? Equality and Human Rights Commission?

What is the ECHR?
I can remember a head of department getting fed up with children not having textbooks and deciding that we should just photocopy and hand out a page as we did it-it was impossible

And if you are, better keep it quiet, because if the ECHR hears about it....

When you say 'this country' and 'here' are you talking about the UK, granb?

It has been in the news over the last couple of days that a court in South Africa has ruled that the lack of text books is a breach of the constitution.

It just crossed my mind that we seem to have accepted the position here and have allowed the lack of funding to be an acceptable reason.

Would you like to elaborate granb ?