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Boarding schools are a standard way of
educating children throughout the world.
In the United States of America, students under the age of thirteen may
attend a junior boarding school. These boarding schools are not as
numerous or encouraged as in the United Kingdom. During the colonial era
when the British Empire was expanding its territories throughout the
world, the traditional British boarding school model became popular as a
way to separate the natives from their local culture and reeducate them.
The British sought to have the natives conform to their way of thinking
and help them achieve their goals of imperial domination.
All over the world, more boys are sent to boarding schools than girls.
In addition, boys attend boarding school for a longer period of time
than girls. While boarding schools are one of the preferred choices in
educational modalities in the United Kingdom, with 772 private boarding
schools and 100,000 students in 1998, most societies do not accept the
boarding school as a preferred way of raising their children. The
exceptions are in India and Africa, former colonies of Great Britain.
There, as in the United Kingdom of today, boarding schools are regarded
as a preferred mode of education.
In Switzerland, which has one of the world's best educational systems,
the government developed a unique business strategy relative to boarding
schools. It fostered the development of private boarding schools as a
means to attract foreign students and support the country’s economy. As
a result, the boarding school business became an integral part of the
economy in that country. Many quality facilities offering instruction in
several major languages have been organized through the Swiss Federation
of Private Schools.
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Boarding
Schools Across Societies