Engines of Privilege: Britain's Private School Problem is a book by Francis Green and David Kynaston about private schools in the United Kingdom.[1] The authors argue that the "educational apartheid"[2][3] of independent (private) schools and state schools in the United Kingdom:
Published in 2019, the book received a range of reviews from commentators inside and outside private schools.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Writing in the Financial Times, Miranda Green wrote, "we can expect the manifesto-writers at the next general election to pass magpie-like over these chapters ... The appeal to act is heartfelt."[13] Privately educated journalist Hugo Rifkind in The Times described the book as doing "a fine job of explaining and damning Britain's private school problem", but also commented that "this powerful attack on public schools ends up an unintended advert for them".[14][15]
Much of criticism of the book came from commentators who were privately educated, rather than in state schools, what the book calls independent school lobbyists on behalf of the Independent Schools Council (ISC):
Anne McElvoy (state educated) wrote that the book "reminds us that many arguments recur down the decades".[18]
"in no other western society are private schools so deeply entrenched or so corrosive in their effects"—Francis Green and David Kynaston
One of the explanations Green and Kynaston propose for a 150-year history of stalled, delayed, abandoned and half-hearted attempts to change Britain's peculiar system of private schooling is that most people just can't be bothered.
This is a superb book
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