Rishi Sunak: This is where the Prime Minister went to school and how much it cost

Rishi Sunak is coming under fire as people accuse him of having cut funding when he was Chancellor, leading to UK schools dealing with the current 'concrete crisis'. Many schools have now closed as they were built with RAAC concrete which made them at risk of collapsing.

These buildings are only now having work done on them to make them safe, and many are blaming the current Prime Minister. The Department for Education said 156 school buildings were identified as having this type of concrete, 52 of which were at risk of sudden collapse, reports the BBC.

As this disaster unfolds, let’s take a look at Rishi Sunak’s childhood and schooling. Sunak’s family emigrated to the UK 60 years ago. His mother, Usha Sunak, was born in Tanganyika and his father, Yashvir, in Kenya but both are Hindu, of Indian Punjabi descent. They both moved to Britain and this is where they met and had Rishi, making him Britain’s first Indian Prime Minister.He grew up in Southampton, with two younger siblings. The PM has previously stated that he would do deliveries and help with the books at the pharmacy that his mother ran, and that he also worked at the local Indian restaurant.

In former Conservative chairman Lord Michael Ashcroft’s biography of Rishi Sunak, we are told that 'People on Spindlewood Close still remember the small boy with jet-black hair, a ready smile and lovely manners who used to wheel around on a bike with the other kids or kick a ball about with his little brother Sanjay.’ But where did this smiley boy go to school?

Rishi Sunak’s time at Winchester College

Rishi Sunak went to the local private prep school, then on to Stroud School in Hampshire. A fellow pupil, who went on to become a teacher there, has reported that Sunak stood out.

He was someone that was talked about. The teachers would say, ‘He’s going to be a Prime Minister’.

Then, when the time came, his parents bit the bullet and sent him to Winchester College, one of Britain’s most expensive private schools. The fee for a boarding pupil in 2022-2023 is £45,936 per annum.

Read more: Rishi Sunak's wife Akshata Murty reportedly gets scolded for 'overdoing the shopping' by mother

A mother’s account of Winchester College

In 2022, Helen Kirwan-Taylor wrote for Tatler about this expensive school. Both of her sons attended, following in their father’s footsteps. She writes that when she first visited the school, it was then seen as the ‘maverick’ choice. It was run by the poet:mathematician Nicholas MacKinnon, who she claims was ‘outrageous in a good way, in the days when one could be’.

She also explains that she burst into tears on her first trip because she was shocked by the condition of the building: it had a ‘giant hole in the entrance staircase’ due to an old leak, the paint was peeling, and it stunk of bad body odor. When she asked MacKinnon about the state of the place, he replied that he had a budget, and that he had to make a choice: to use it to decorate, or to expand horizons.

Rishi Sunak’s expanded horizons

Well, it certainly worked for the current PM. According to Kirwan-Taylor’s report, the school focused on academics, and less on who your parents were or where you 'summered'. Sunak went on to become head boy and has since become a regular donor to the school. In 2022, The Guardian reported that Sunak donated more than £100,000 to Winchester college.

Maybe they used it to redecorate, but it seems unlikely.

Read more:

⋙ Rishi Sunak and Nadine Dorries: Here's when their famous feud first started

⋙ Rishi Sunak facing backlash over extravagant habit of using private jets, here's what's happening

Sources used:

Tatler: How Rishi Sunak’s time at brilliant (but bonkers) Winchester College has shaped him as PM, by a proud former parent

Daily Echo: Rishi Sunak's Southampton childhood, education and career