Real education

If there is an annual award for research leading to the blindingly obvious it surely should go to the Programme for International Student Assessment (your report, 3 December).

If pupils in South Korea spend 13 hours in school or with crammers then of course they will be ahead of children in other countries.

But is that what we want for our young people?

We might also ask what proportion of the juvenile population of South Korea have access to higher education or even any education.

Do the students attending universities in that country finish three years ahead of students in Scotland? I doubt it.

To put it more crudely, how many students in South Korea have received Nobel Prizes?

JACK KILPATRICK

East Kilbride