The Royal Shakespeare Company has been accused of discrimination and ‘feeding into a national class war’ by charging private school pupils more than state schoolchildren for theatre visits.
Groups of state schoolchildren watching performances by the globally famous company are charged £10 a head, while their private school counterparts are charged a staggering £16.50.
The National Theatre in London also charges private schoolchildren more than state pupils – £12 a head compared to £10.
Last night, campaigners from the Education not Taxation (ENT) pressure group, which represents private school parents nationwide, said the ‘two-tier pricing blatantly discriminates against independent school children’.
Urging the Charity Commission to investigate, an ENT spokesman said: ‘Raising the prices for independent school children feeds into a national class war and can deny children access to rites of passage we should all encourage, such as watching Shakespeare plays.
‘Their apparent attempts at social justice show no understanding of the nuanced education landscape, which includes wealthy state schools and poor independent schools.’ A Mail on Sunday investigation has also discovered that a prestigious national engineering competition for schools barred private schools from taking part just two years ago.
The Big Bang Programme, run by Engineering UK, ruled private schoolchildren as ineligible from taking part in its nationwide competition.
More than half a million schoolchildren from over 1,000 schools attend Royal Shakespeare Company performances every year.
And yet it is believed the company quietly shelved its one price for all under-18 schoolchildren of £12.50, lowering prices for state schools and dramatically increasing them for private schools.
Richard Jones, head of Dorset’s Bryanston School, which is famous for performing arts, said: ‘The theatres’ premium for independent school children isn’t inclusion, it’s discrimination.
‘The arts are meant to unite audiences, not divide children through where they go to school.’
The RSC said ‘prices for private schools are at a slightly higher rate due to the differences in budgets that are available between state-maintained schools and schools in the independent sector’.
The National Theatre said its prices were set on ‘a long-standing pricing structure which has been in place for many years’.
And Engineering UK said it did not consider private schoolchildren to be among the ‘under-represented groups in engineering’ it aimed to inspire.
