Readers' Letters: Why do so many pupils need extra support today?

Your report “Teachers face ‘sharp rise’ in violence from school pupils” (17 July) suggests most incidents involve pupils with Additional Support Needs.

If this is so Scotland has a huge problem because according to a 2021 report by the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition "the number of pupils with ASN, such as autism, dyslexia and mental health problems in 2021 has reached a record high of 232,753. Of this total 58.0 per cent are boys. This represents 33.0 per cent of the pupil population....". An almost eightfold rise from the 31,980 in 2008.

This is almost unbelievable, even when considering differing methods of reporting. When I was at school there were almost no children classed as having ASN and no classroom assistants in schools. Something has gone seriously wrong in Scotland and it is far too easy to simply blame poverty and “the Tories”. Arguably there was at least as much poverty in my day, but there were better behaved children, more discipline in schools, and far fewer single parent families – in the UK in 1971 there were 571,000 single parent families, today there are around 3 million, so roughly 300,000 in Scotland.

I hope Education Minister Jenny Gilruth's planned summit on the issue considers all these uncomfortable issues.

Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth has a challenge ahead, reckons reader (Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire)

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Road problems

Regarding Thomas Mitchell’s Law & Legal Affairs article (17 July), our roadway problems are more fundamental than merely a proactive versus reactive approach to repair and maintenance.

The question is why the UK’s original road surface engineering is so mediocre compared to that in other countries with similar or worse climates, weather patterns and traffic types and levels. This question is never credibly answered by our council officials or civil engineers.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Banking on trust

Recent news of people deprived of banking facilities reminds me of the Irish bank strikes of the 1960s and 1970s, the longest of which was for six months in 1970. People overcame the lack of real money and banking facilities by issuing cheques to each other, and then endorsing these in favour of other people and businesses, in payment for essential daily goods and services.

Eventually there were thousands of cheques in circulation, each with dozens of signatures on the back. They would be put together to add up to whatever sum was needed for a purchase, and any change would be given the same way. The people had in fact created cheques as a private currency that replaced bank money.

The backing for this, of course, was the knowledge that each cheque would be honoured by a bank when eventually presented for payment. But in fact there was no need for that, and the process could have been continued. The cheques had become a currency, and indeed, people could have issued cheques in excess of their deposits at their own particular banks. They would then have been doing for themselves what the banks now actually do as a business – creating and lending money from thin air, but that money would, of course, have been interest free.

This was an example of how an internal currency could be created with the backing of a central guarantor, and I believe such a system is often considered for countries seeking independence.

But back to the 1970s, and to stop this happening again, all the banks – not just the Irish – disallowed the process of endorsing a cheque to another party, and started the “A/C Payee Only” rule for cheques, wary as ever of anything that could exclude them from making money.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Kinross

In Winnie’s name

Following the wonderful memorial service celebrating the life of Winnie Ewing, a lasting and honourable testament to the legacy of “Madame Ecosse”, Scotland should have the courage and confidence to fulfil its true potential.

For those hesitant Scots please remember the once poor and backward country of Ireland. With independence it developed into a socially democratic and progressive European country. Today, with nothing like the resources of Scotland, the Republic of Ireland has a hi-tech economy and the Dublin government commands diplomatic respect when negotiating with the UK, EU and world. This could be the Scotland of tomorrow.

However in the UK, directly because of Brexit, we have the highest inflation rate in Europe which devalues the pound, resulting in a staggering cost of living crisis including strikes and mortgage increases, all down to this disastrous, dysfunctional Tory UK government.

With the utter disaster of Brexit a united Yes independence campaign will lay out the obvious and clear economic argument that Scotland will be better off and more prosperous outside the UK and inside Europe.

Grant Frazer, Newtonmore, Highland

Power Point

Stephen Flynn, the SNP Leader at Westminster, provided no data on how he will achieve “sustained economic growth with independence” (your report, 17 July) when the 45,000MW of windmills, announced in the SNP Energy Paper issued in the spring, will produce no electricity when the wind fails to blow.

Based on the Seagreen project costs, that is a capital debt of around £200 billion that leaves the economy with no electricity to light or heat our schools, hospitals and medical centres! Why do the SNP plan to desecrate the Flow Country of the Highlands and the Glenkens of Galloway with a technology that is both inefficient, unreliable and unaffordable ?

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway

Different equities

Robert Gelb’s opinion on start-up equity positions of Scottish universities is about as naive as the “arrogant” statements he purports to have heard (“Universities are holding back their spinout firms”, 15 July). As Executive Director of MIT’s Technology Licensing Office (TLO) and as a participant in the Ten-U Collaboration funded by UKRI Research England (of which Edinburgh University is part), I am extremely familiar with the arguments being made comparing UK to US innovation ecosystems.

There is insufficient column space to provide a blow-by-blow on why Mr Gelb’s arguments don’t hold water. Suffice to say, there are clear and justifiable reasons for varying amounts of equity to be taken in startups in lieu of “real cash” and value add. Different ecosystems provide different types of IP, levels of support, investment and education, none of which can be directly compared to the other without carefully parsing those contributions. Lastly, only attributing equity stakes to “future opportunities” demonstrates such a fundamental lack of understanding of the role of universities in creating, encouraging and sustaining entrepreneurs, startups and economic development as to be laughable.

I won’t laugh, but I do invite Mr Gelb to reach out for a conversation with myself and my colleagues in Ten-U including Stanford, Columbia and MIT.

Lesley Millar-Nicholson, Exec Director, MIT TLO, Sudbury, MA, USA

Two rebels

There are interesting similarities between the careers of Charles Edward Stuart (the Bonnie Prince) and Yevgeny Prigozhin. Both were rebel leaders who led an armed revolt against the authorities of the time and both abandoned their rebellions halfway through. Prigozhin turned back when he was about 100 miles from Moscow and Stuart when he was about 100 miles from London. Prigozhin fled to Belarus and Stuart fled to Scotland. The big difference is their motives. Prigozhin wanted certain Russian generals sacked and his Wagner group given status in the Russian army. Stuart was more ambitious: he hoped to overthrow the Protestant regime in Britain and install himself as a Catholic monarch like those in Europe. Neither realised his ambitions, but so far Prigozhin has not suffered the crushing defeat that Stuart met at Culloden. The aftermath of a failed rebellion is terrible for the soldiers of the rebel army. Many of Stuart's followers were hunted down and executed as traitors. So far, Prigozhin's soldiers have been offered places in the Russian army, it seems, but it remains to be seen if that offer is as generous as it appears.

As for the leaders, Prigozhin can only hope he will fare as well as Stuart did. Stuart made his way back to Rome where he had grown up in one of the Pope's palaces and lived out his life in idleness until he died of a stroke in 1788. It is highly unlikely that Vladimir Putin, who has dealt ruthlessly with critics and opponents both inside and outside Russia, will suddenly change his methods and treat the rebellion as a minor mishap. Prigozhin would be well advised to avoid door handles, open windows, cups of tea and umbrellas.

Les Reid, Edinburgh

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