David Makin: When a government spends around 8* more on "defence" than education is it any wonder that knives and guns are more highly valued than learning ? The UK education budget is considerably higher than the US one, in fact it's actually around double our defence budget. Of course that means that per capita we spend vastly more on education than the US plus we also have many pupils, in particular aged from 11-16, whose parent's choose "public schools" i.e. private education - though IMO these should be gradually phased out along with any educational institutions having religious bias of any variety - except for those specifically for training of religion/theology aimed at having such a vocation - and only then at 16+. -------------------------------------------------------- I don't quite understand what you mean by ""public schools" i.e. private education". Do you mean publicly funded, privately operated schooling? In the UK, is this an option available only to children at least 11 year old? The most extreme case of enforced educational indoctrination that I'm aware of in a not overtly communist country is in Germany. Home schooling is illegal there. A German home schooling family was granted political asylum in the U.S. because they faced persecution (e.g. having their children seized). [ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/us/01homeschool.html ] -- Gene