Education undermined
Sir: Secondary education has certainly been subjected to destructive influences in recent years — and the Labour Party must bear much of the blame. A lunatic combination of egalitarianism and anti-intellectual bias is producing in this country a new lump enproletariat, who emerge from their comprehensive schools in such an illeducated state that many of them are incapable of filling the job vacancies that do exist without re-education in basic skills.
Meanwhile the campaign against the intelligent minority continues. Mrs Shirley Williams seems determined to wipe out every remaining grammar school in sight. Now there arises a menacing and carefully orchestrated demand to lower the requirements for university and college entrance; and to drag down the standards of 0 and A level examinations on the bogus grounds of widening educational opportunity and postponing specialisation!
This trendy mirage entails apparently a slack and undemanding subsidised prog'ress, as of right, through the schools with plenty of time for spare-time jobs, premature courtship and other delights — and, of course, automatic entrance to higher education. Dropping out of swollen cam puses will soon become a national pastime in such a situation! In the light of these impending developments, is there any hope of rescuing education from the Schools Council, the NUT and others? Then perhaps education might revert to being a privilege to be earned — as it once was — and much public money would be saved. J. H. K. Lockhart
21B King's Avenue, London W5
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