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"A family based in north London seeks an extraordinary and experienced educator to guide their smallest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."

When reading this listing, you might readily skip the phrase "first-steps" as just a turn of phrase.

Yet, it could be the crucial aspect of this unusual job advert, as it aims to recruit a tutor for a infant.

Hundreds of submissions have since been submitted since the unnamed family advertised their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".

In recent few weeks, the listing has received notice throughout the news, with many asking why?

Progressive Approach

A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their search, said that notwithstanding early skepticism, he found the idea "far sighted", and "progressive".

When he consulted the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical aspect of their request, and how early in age their son is.

However, they stated that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural bias had already set in".

What precisely does the family refer to by "cultural bias"?

It's "comprehensive", he answered. "The way you eat, the way you speak".

He stated the older sibling had adopted "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to him they wished to avoid this pattern to recur with their younger child.

The strategy: To engage a UK tutor, who should speak with RP, to shape the baby from day one.

Subtle Influence

"A lot of the learning at the start here is somewhat osmotic," explained the expert.

It's by means of this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will acquire the English characteristics they wish to instil.

He explained the tutor had to be someone who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".

"The educator must be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he said.

Cost Not Relevant

The family explained to the expert the successful candidate should preferably also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, skiing, artistic pursuits and musical activities so as to shape the child in a wide range of hobbies.

Furthermore though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an instrument by the time they are around three years old".

In the family's view, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will lead to success and open doors.

"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he comments.

Yet, despite all this instruction in "UK identity", could the child pick up what is termed cultural leaning from the international family he lives with in any case?

"Certainly", replied the CEO. "The parents understand this could fail, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he explained.

Impractical

Several in the education sector who express these doubts.

Peter Cui, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who also offer individual instructors, commented that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."

The expert noted that he had moved from Asia to the UK at the period of childhood, and had been educated experiencing and practicing two backgrounds. He continued to study at the University of Cambridge.

"The notion that an individual can serve as a embodiment of UK identity, a person who can in some way transplant the attributes of a English gentleman onto a one-year-old child, appears idealistic and unrealistic," he commented.

"In my experience, having a typically British tutor from infancy will not necessarily create the result they want.

"I did not have such a figure, and yet I have been fortunate enough to enjoy many of the opportunities they desire for their son."

He continued: "The fact is, personal identity can not be imposed from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."

Purchasing UK Culture

Naturally, English culture is something the expert hopes can be instructed – and marketed.

"In my view the reality that the global community holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating