Letter: Russell contempt

Education secretary Mike Russell's decision to bar the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association (SSTA) from being represented on the Curriculum for Excellence management board (your report, 19 October), must be of great concern to those in education and in the wider public sector in Scotland.

In what must surely be a taste of things to come in the public sector, Mr Russell somehow expects the union to set aside the wishes of its members for the sake of sitting on a board where dissent from the government's view is apparently forbidden. What nonsense!

Does he not realise that the fact that SSTA's properly balloted members continue to have concerns over the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence surely adds more, not less, importance to their participation on the board? The other teaching unions involved, instead of allowing Mr Russell to effectively divide and rule, must surely threaten withdrawal from the board unless and until the SSTA is reinstated without any preconditions. That is not to say that the SSTA's views should or will necessarily prevail, but Mr Russell's actions are an affront to democracy and representation.

Such arrogance by the SNP administration is hardly new, and we all know that Alex Salmond likes to portray himself and his ministers as vastly superior in intellect compared with those speaking on behalf of the opposition parties.

Actions like those of Mr Russell actually betray a level of conceit which is at best deeply unedifying, and at worst shows an utter contempt for those who have a legitimate role in shaping the future of our children's education.

Bill Goodall

Baird Drive

Edinburgh