"A household based in North London is looking for an exceptional and skilled educator to guide their most junior child on his first steps to turning into an British gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might easily skip the phrase "first-steps" as just figurative language.
But, it may be the crucial element of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a mentor for a infant.
Many of submissions have since been submitted since the unidentified family posted their request for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has attracted interest across the press, with several questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that in spite of initial scepticism, he found the concept "visionary", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he said they recognized the unusual nature of their request, and how early in age their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural influence had by then set in".
But what did the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam replied. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the elder child had picked up "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural habits. The family informed Adam they wished to avoid the same situation to recur with their younger child.
The intention: To hire a British tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to influence the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the development at the beginning here is kind of absorbed naturally," explained the CEO.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will pick up the UK customs they aim to impart.
Adam noted the tutor needed to be an individual who studied at "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to him the chosen tutor should preferably also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in horse riding, winter sports, the arts and music so as to influence the child in a diverse set of interests.
Furthermore though, he stated the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son grow into a "UK sophisticate" will lead to accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he comments.
However, in spite of all this instruction in "Britishness", would the child pick up alleged cultural influence from the globally influenced family he is raised by anyway?
"Certainly", said he. "They realize this might not succeed, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'we should try and we should start as soon as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
There are some in the education sector who express similar doubts.
Another CEO, head and founder of Blue Education, who also offer private tutors, wrote that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
He wrote that he had moved from China to the Britain at the age of childhood, and had been raised understanding and living dual heritages. He went on to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that one individual can serve as a representation of English culture, an individual who can in some way impart the attributes of a English gentleman to a infant child, seems to me idealistic and impractical," he commented.
"In my experience, employing a distinctly UK tutor from early childhood will not automatically create the result they desire.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and yet I have been privileged enough to enjoy numerous of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, personal identity cannot be imposed from the outside influences; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, UK identity is something the expert believes can be educated – and marketed.
"I believe the fact that the global community views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
