Simon Cowell has said that, if it were up to him, his five-year-old son Eric would leave school at the age of ten.
“If I can get him out at ten to come and work for me then I would. I was better off out of school than I was in,” he said in a recent interview with NBC. “I didn’t have that major stress about homework, because I would just throw it away. A healthy, happy kid is more important than an over-educated, stressed kid.”
Whatever your definition of “over-educated” is – and apparently for Cowell, that definition is “still in school at 11” – he probably has a point, or the semblance of one, when it comes to stress. Stress is a growing problem in younger and younger children, with stretched resources and limited budgets in schools leading them to push for better and better results, leading to incredibly anxious children thinking far more is riding on a Sats result than realistically is.
Working in the music industry is hardly known for being stress-free, of course, and that’s where Eric would find himself if working for his dad’s massive entertainment empire. But Cowell just really seems to have it in for the idea of his son staying in school. It’s something he’s spoken about a lot since becoming a father, saying in the past that he would “100 per cent encourage” Eric to leave at the earliest point he could, which in both the UK and US is 16.
But, even ignoring the fact that “come and work for me aged 10” is the kind of thing said by Dickensian characters running chimney-sweeping empires, what works for Cowell’s son isn’t going to work for everyone. Eric was born to a father worth $570 million – even if he never learned to read, wipe his bum or operate a door handle, he could lead a completely blessed existence as a “happy, healthy” kid surrounded by better-qualified people performing all those tasks for him. If you’ve got half a billion dollars, then yeah, an A-Level or two won’t make a lot of difference. But if you don’t, then you know what? It might.
Cowell is an enormously influential figure, and carelessly throwing ideas around like “education is bad” is irresponsible at best. He and his family are in incredibly privileged positions and statements such as this could risk encouraging those who have far less to devalue their education.
He is phenomenally successful, but he didn’t exactly come from nothing. The years of schooling he did have were at Radlett Prep and Dover College, both expensive independent schools off-limits to the vast majority of people. Cowell also had something not everyone who wants to get into the music industry has – a dad working as an executive at a record company. Cowell’s father – whom he named Eric after – worked at EMI and got Simon a job there. Cowell undeniably has a lot of talent, and would probably still have been massively successful without that leg-up, but getting a foot in the door was certainly made easier by having a dad in the business. Simon’s first company was set up with his boss at EMI, who he simply would never have met without his family connections.
Looking at what he’s said about his own child, Cowell is probably right in a lot of ways. Staying in education will make very little difference to his son’s life of wealth and luxury. But for the majority of people who have far less, the opportunities offered by education are the best way of improving their situation. With shows such The X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, Cowell sells the dream of instant success and stardom, an immediate short-cut to wealth and adoration that is obviously incredibly captivating, but most of us are more likely to benefit long-term from getting a few qualifications.
There’s a difference between inspiring people to follow their dreams and encouraging them to opt out of opportunity. And in carelessly suggesting that the best resource available to most people – education – is worthless, he’s risking doing just that.