Lesson in equality

Published on 28/09/2012 00:00

WHILE I admire my former classmate Brian (Bobo) Monteith’s attempts (Perspective, 17 September) to justify charitable status for private fee-paying schools, I fear that he is trying to defend the indefensible.

Any fair and reasonable-minded person cannot be blind to the obvious public dis-benefit; that privately purchased education for the few must perpetually stigmatise and prejudice the ­majority.

This Dickensian system of educational segregation is perhaps a more extreme example of educational apartheid than educational segregation of children sponsored by religions, in my view another Stone Age backward idea.

Adults may treat other adults poorly (bankers and plebs) but we all have a mutual responsibility to treat all our children equally.

The honest appraisal by Emeritus Professor Paul S Braterman (Letters, 18 September) that charitable status for fee-paying schools is a blood transfusion for a parasite, is accurate and I would challenge anyone to ­better it.

Kenneth M Baird

Brighouse Park Cross

Edinburgh