A foreign visitor to England finds English education hard to understand.
This is because there is not just one educational system but a number of systems
existing side by side.
First of all we can divide the schools into three kinds according to whom
they belong to. There are private schools, public schools and state schools. The
private schools are run as private profit-making businesses usually owned by the
headmaster. They are mostly for younger children. The parents pay fees. Secondly
there are the public schools. They are public in the sense that they are not
privately owned by individuals but they are not owned by the government. They
are governed by their own school committees. They charge fees but do not aim to
make a profit.