Ill-considered education reforms will consign children to the scrapheap

Published on Tuesday 16 June 2009 22:10

Where is the logic or common sense in education secretary Fiona Hyslop's proposal to allow one in five pupils to leave school without having to sit any exams and, instead, depart with nothing more than a worthless thumbs-up from their teachers (your report, 12 June)?

Can anyone seriously believe the proposed two-tier qualifications system to replace Standard grades will achieve anything other than further downgrading the standing of less academically gifted children and practically guarantee they are consigned to the scrapheap of life?

Politicians like Ms Hyslop seem to believe success is measured solely by the number of children who go to university. The result is that thousands of youngsters who get into university drop out after a year when they realise it was not what they were suited for. Meanwhile, politicians are busy ticking boxes and congratulating themselves on a job well done.

The proposal to drop external certification, designed to save money, will put further pressure on teachers to mark up, in these target-obsessed times.

Every child has something to give, to achieve, and it is the job of politicians to keep such doors open. With the present system, a depressingly large percentage hit the buffers of life at 16 when nothing seems to offer a real future. Then ambition dies and hope fades for the less intelligent child. Politicians should be concentrating on raising these children's eyes to horizons beyond school as, at present, many simply see 16 as the start of a life on benefits.

While there is no instant solution to the educational malaise in which we find ourselves, we should at least ensure that all children have a future mapped out for them until they are 20. It may be university, apprenticeships, community service, technical colleges (yes we should bring them back and not pretend they are universities), the armed services, local government or similar potential opportunities.

And what are we to make of Ms Hyslop's proposal to introduce literacy and numeracy tests in S3 and S4, based on classroom assessment? If pupils cannot read or write properly by the time they leave primary school, surely it is at that stage of education where the problem needs to be tackled.

Instead of endless tinkering with our education system, politicians of all colours should have the courage to admit this is a vital area that needs urgent and radical overhaul, regardless of the cost or the prolonged period of time it will take to make right.

ARCHIE STIRLING

Scottish Voice

Craigarnhall

Bridge of Allan, Stirling

Every pupil, at the end of 11 years of compulsory education, is entitled to an objective and externally assessed statement of what he/she has achieved over those years. This statement should have currency in the world of employment and further education.

However, what is now being proposed by Fiona Hyslop is nothing less than the total abandonment of this principle. The effects on Scottish education are incalculable, but I suspect the end result will be the death of comprehensive education as we know it. Schools with a high proportion of more able pupils and with a mainly middle-class parent body will show little interest in the new National Qualification at Level 4 (internally assessed) and will channel their pupils towards Level 5 (externally assessed) and to Higher and Advanced Higher, which will continue to be externally assessed. Employers will quickly get the message that Level 4 qualifications are inferior. Before long, individual schools will be regarded as "senior secondary" or "junior secondary".

I am old enough to remember the segregated system and I would not want to see it return.

Another decision by Ms Hyslop – to introduce a literacy and numeracy test, based on a portfolio of class work, in S3 or S4 – will increase the threat to comprehensive education.

Literacy and numeracy tests should take place in P6 or P7. This would allow remediation to take place over five or six years and would give secondary schools due notice of the arrival of pupils likely to need special attention. Second, the testing in S3/S4 will be seen as largely irrelevant by able pupils and their parents, though a pupil who fails the test and then goes on to leave school with no externally assessed certificate will be likely to fare badly in the world of employment. In other words, this is another socially divisive proposal, at a time when the connection between socio-economic status and educational achievement is the biggest problem faced by our educational system.

FRED FORRESTER

North Larches

Dunfermline