Exclusively yours

I call it a reverse-colonial trend. First, Indian curries became popular fare in the UK. Now it looks like some British parents are becoming more like Singaporeans – at least, in one aspect. In a bit to ensure their children get into the best primary schools, parents have resorted to moving house, using relatives’ addresses, or telling on their neighbours for fibbing.
Estate agents are capitalising on this by promoting residential property within schools’ catchment area. Deja vu? Remember all the condominium advertisements in the papers and on TV, emphasizing the proximity to some top-ranked schools? And the hoo-ha in the local papers about parents who were caught lying about their addresses – well, that happened years ago.
And now with Crony, I mean, Tony Blair’s proposal to further increase university fees (with exceptions for low income households), it is argued that this may compel students who originally wanted to study, say, French medieval history, to switch to more a ‘practical’ subject such as Business to help them pay off their debts more easily. Well, we were already doing that, decades ago – if not to pay off debts (usually funded by parents or scholarships, anyway), then simply to make more money for ourselves. Sad isn’t it.