Education should be accessible to people of all economic backgrounds. All levels of education, from primary school to tertiary school, should be free. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

The principle alluded to in the question is laudable, because equality of opportunity is an idea that most people support. Despite this, debate exists about whether it should be applied to the field of education. I only partially agree with the idea of free education for all children, and will outline why below. My first reservation concerns doubt about the level and quality of government funding that schools would receive were education to be subsidised for all children. For example, some primary schools may have old climbing frames and toys, which as a result of their age, would be a health and safety hazard. Similarly, a high school may have out of date textbooks as a result of government underfunding. Thus, privately funded educational institutions are likely to have better facilities than state subsidised ones. Another reason I only partially agree with this idea is that many students, often from poorer economic backgrounds, are not interested in their education, and would prefer to get a job when they are fifteen, or younger. Thus, free education would be a waste of taxpayers money for such students. Despite the arguments above, I agree that free education, at all levels, is egalitarian and meritocratic, and thus a laudable idea. For example, all people are born equal, so it is immoral to give better equipment and smaller class sizes to some, just because they were born to wealthy parents. Furthermore, modern liberal democracies have been led by governments comprised of politicians from wealthy backgrounds, who went to fee paying schools in the Britain and America. Despite this, global society is currently on the brink of socio-economic collapse. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that privately funded education has not helped most of the peoples of the world. Finally, I support the notion that education be free for all, as the current system of university education has resulted in millions of graduates entering the jobs market with large amounts of debt. In addition, the situation has become so bad in England that many teenagers are choosing not to go to university because of this debt problem. In conclusion, I only partially agree that education should be free for all, because I do not think classroom resources would be of a high enough standard. Nevertheless, I agree that it is meritocratic, and were funding to be adequate, it should be enacted in all countries.