Parents are finding it increasingly difficult to send children to fee-paying schools with private education less affordable than it was five years ago, a report has claimed.
In a report condemned by the Independent Schools Council, Halifax Financial Services found that school fees in 2005 took up a significantly larger chunk of earnings than in 2000.
In 2005, average private school fees were equal to 35% of average gross earning compared to 30% in 2000.
In the report, fees were judged to be affordable if the charge for one child's schooling for one year was equivalent of less than 25% of the average earning of a parent's occupation.
This would mean that parents in only ten occupations named by the Halifax can now afford to send their kids to fee-paying schools, down from 19 in 2000.
The offspring from the average pilot, doctor, lawyer and senior police officer could still afford go to private school, under the criteria.
But children that sprang from the loins of journalists, writers, tax advisors, architects and scientists, are among those deemed to have been frozen out by rising school fees.
For teachers, school fees represented 30% of the average salary in 2005, whilst for nurses, the chunk of average earnings needed was bumped up to 39%.
As a result, less than one in ten nurses can afford to send a child to a private school, researchers noted.
But the Independent Schools Council says the information from Halifax Financial Services is "muddled and misleading".
