School Swap – The Class Divide, UTV, Tuesday at 9pm
Britain’s Spending Secrets, BBC 1, Wednesday at 9pm
If there was one thing certain about the visit of a private school to a state one, it’s that everyone would pat the poor kids on the head and tell them how well they were doing.
There was a patronising feel to School Swap where the head master of £27,000 a year Warminster went for a week-long visit to Bemrose secondary school in Derby.
Bemrose has such a high immigrant population that 50 per cent of its students had English as a second language.
Nonetheless, Mark Mortimer, former soldier and now headmaster of Warminster, was highly impressed with the quality of teaching and the pastoral care.
Jo Ward, Bemrose’s head teacher, didn’t reciprocate.
"Some of the worst teachers are recruited into the private system," she said, arguing unconvincingly that her school provided a better education.
Viewed from an Irish perspective, one of the striking things was how class obsessed Britain remains and nothing defines class as much as whether your parents pay for your schooling.
With around seven per cent of pupils in private schools, it means there are three classes remaining in Britain and they are defined by money not family background. There’s the rich seven per cent, the working class in the middle and the benefit class at the bottom.
We may have our own disagreements in Northern Ireland about the need to divide our children at the age of 11, but however unfair in may be at least it’s based on ability and not how rich your parents are.
If the TV schedulers are correct, Britain is convulsed by these educational decisions, because while School Swap started its run on ITV, Chinese School: Are Our Children Tough Enough was continuing on BBC 2.
The following night Anne Robinson began a new programme on Britain’s spending habits, visiting families in the three financial classes.
And guess which major expenditure she focused on?
The £100,000 a year Stephens family from Northampton were fighting to be in the rich list.
Wife Diana earned £90,000 a year in banking but had to get up at 5.30am for a two-hour commute to London. Her husband Darren only brought in £10,000 from his fledgling company, but he was hoping his home-run business would give them enough to push them into the private school bracket.
Darren even brought the cameras to the front gates of the local private school to tell us how important aspiration was.
Not for the first time I found myself reflecting on how glad I am to live in Ireland.
Nine O’Clock News, RTE 1, Thursday
We’ve got used to schizophrenic approach of RTE to events in Northern Ireland, but Thursday night’s main news was incredible.
For years media watchers have scratched their heads at some of the decisions made by RTE news when it comes to the north, but quite how it failed to carry anything about the events in Belfast on Thursday left me open-mouthed.
At a 4pm press conference on Thursday, a senior PSNI detective said it believed current Provisional IRA members may have been involved in the murder of Kevin McGuigan.
Within a couple of hours all the main political parties were seeking interviews with the chief constable and the future of the power sharing arrangements in the north were in doubt.
RTE’s response on the main 9pm news? Nothing, not a word, never happened.
They covered the Greek election, clashes in Korea and a bear in a swimming pool in Canada.
