Reform, not cash

Our state schools will 
remain unfit for purpose if we continue to believe that Scottish 
education was once a world leader and we can regain top spot by throwing money at it.

The former is Brigadoon 
fantasy, and the much vaunted Highland lad o’ pairts attending university before the Second World War was rarely of a lower social class than the local 
dominie’s child.

At its 1950s best, it was a 
serviceable and diverse system of high, technical and junior 
secondary schools which 
operated under practical and pragmatic local councillors.

Today we have a depressingly uniform system in thrall to comprehensive ideology and an educational soviet in the most centralised and over-governed nation in Europe.

Pouring yet more money into this unreformed monolith is pure waste and our schools and regions need greater autonomy to promote excellence through competition and choice.

Internationally, successful schools with limited resources use a grammar school approach at the top end – but can you
imagine our leftist teacher 
unions supporting that reform?

(Dr) John Cameron

Howard Place

St Andrews