"A family based in north London wants to find an extraordinary and qualified instructor to support their smallest child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this listing, you might easily miss the phrase "beginning" as mere a turn of phrase.
Yet, it may be the crucial part of this unique employment listing, as it attempts to hire a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of submissions have now been sent in since the unidentified family advertised their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has received interest across the media, with several asking why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their hunt, explained that despite early skepticism, he viewed the plan "visionary", and "progressive".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they understood the unconventional aspect of their request, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had by then become established".
What exactly did the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", the expert answered. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the elder child had adopted "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family told the consultant they did not want this pattern to happen again with their infant.
The intention: To engage a UK tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the development at the beginning here is somewhat osmotic," explained Adam.
It's by means of this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will adopt the British traits they aim to cultivate.
He noted the tutor needed to be an individual who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator must be the suitable individual, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Money No Object
The family told Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in riding, winter sports, the arts and music so as to shape the child in a wide range of passions.
More than that though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, guiding their son become a "English gentleman" will bring about success and open doors.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he adds.
However, notwithstanding all this guidance in "UK identity", might the child absorb alleged cultural bias from the multicultural family he is raised by in any case?
"Yes", said Adam. "The family realize this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'we should try and let's go as early as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he explained.
Impractical
A number of in the tutoring industry who have those concerns.
An education leader, chief executive of Blue Education, who also offer private tutors, wrote that "the process of becoming bicultural, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not designed."
He wrote that he had emigrated from the Far East to the UK at the age of seven, and had been raised understanding and living both cultures. He went on to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that a single person can act as a representation of Britishness, a person who can possibly transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman to a one-year-old child, strikes me as naive and impractical," he wrote.
"Based on my background, employing a distinctly English tutor from early childhood will not necessarily create the outcome they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to live numerous of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He added: "The fact is, personal identity can not be imposed from the outside; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, English culture is something the expert hopes can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I think the fact that the world regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
