Private education on the cheap

WE have budget airlines and hotels - and now the 'no-frills' public school. 'Economy class' education could become a feature of the British landscape with the emergence of a new kind of independent school.

Dubai-based company Global Education Management Systems (Gems) is planning to open 200 schools charging from £5,000 to £10,000 a year depending on the class sizes and facilities on offer.

The schools may not boast grand settings like Eton, Harrow and Winchester - where fees are up to

£20,000 a year - but the company claims they will be a good, affordable alternative to State education.

Meanwhile, the think-tank Civitas, which believes more parents would opt for private education if they could afford it, has hit upon a similar idea.

Today it opens a public school in a rented room at a sports centre in Queen's Park, North West London.

The New Model School has just one class - reception year - and charges £900 a term. It will expand each year until these pupils reach 18 years of age. Civitas hopes to create a chain of low-cost schools.

Former schools inspector Mike Tomlinson has welcomed no-frills schools. But a spokesman for the Independent Schools Council said last night standards might suffer.

'I would like to see how schools like this can operate on such budgets,' he said. 'So much of schools' budgets are spent on teaching staff. You can't get fees down by £2,000-£3,000 a year without cutting into teaching staff costs.'

Gems says it can undercut rivals by dealing with costs centrally. Its schools at the 'premium' end will have smaller classes, swimming pools and tennis courts and charge up to £10,000 a year, in line with many mid-market schools.

Those at the bottom end will have larger classes and fewer facilities and charge £5,000 a year.

Gems already has 13 sites across the country and plans to open 200 schools over the next decade.

Its flagship school opened on a 75-acre site at Sherfield-on-Loddon, near Basingstoke, Hants, this month with 90 pupils aged from two to 11. Fees at the day school are set at £9,800 a year for older children. It will eventually cater for pupils up to 19 years old.

Spokesman John Bridger said: 'The idea is to create a range of different schools which have different fee rates. We believe there is a sizeable number of families who would be interested in an affordable offer.'

He said the company would look at building new schools in areas where many parents were failing to get their children into their first choice of state school.