IT comes as a relief to hear that Nicola Sturgeon says she is now prepared to make tough decisions to improve Scotland's "unacceptable" education system.

Levels of literacy and numeracy are falling and the shambolic introduction of the new Higher maths programme (where some schools opted to retain the old Higher, and thousands of young people were left distraught at the paper presented for the new Higher) betrays a distinct lack of focus by the Scottish Government on the job they were elected to do.

The SNP has governed Scotland since 2007, but has spent a high proportion of that time more dedicated to the cause of separation than that of wielding executive powers to run the affairs of state in an efficient manner. Hopefully the First Minister is now having a change of heart and will start to lead a team that actually governs the country.

Derek Miller,

Westbank,

West Balgrochan Road, Torrance.

NOW that Nicola Sturgeon has that current performance in education is not good enough, perhaps progress may be back on the agenda?

The Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) had some great principles that offered choice, personalisation and opportunity for all. Indeed, it read like the best shopping mall in the educational world. It was written during a period in Scottish Education that was thematically about the "Vision Thing". Don't worry about the detail, the infrastructure and the resources required to deliver a Silverburn education on a charity shop budget, just have a vision and all will be well. The vision was great, the reality grates.

Unfortunately the real world and factionalism intervened. The poorest performing aspect of Scottish education was always reckoned to be the P7-S2 phase where Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education often bemoaned the "marking time" philosophy that they deemed occurred before the real educational game picked up with S3/4 Standard Grades. By extending this phase to S3 in the broad general education (BGE) area and yet compressing the Senior Phase S4 experience into one year, credibility and integrity flew out of the window as departments all over Scotland quickly realised the only way to meet the onerous assessment requirements of the Nationals was to disguise their S3 BGE General Course as a Trojan horse full of National 4 and 5 soldiers. The SQA seems to have taken the simplicity of assessment and deliberately chosen the most obfuscatory methodology as a matter of principle, confusing learners and teacher alike. Indeed, at SSTA Congress, just about every question to Dr Janet Brown sounded like a plea on an educational version of the Jeremy Kyle Show for help in regaining the fun and joy of learning instead of the onerous assessment treadmill!.

The General Teaching Council Scotland, meanwhile, has moved to bigger premises, totally agreed with all that has happened and introduced the 75 nested aspects of Professional Update as a stick with which to further beat down the restless natives. They have been as about supportive in combating teacher stress and the destruction of sound learning arrangements as a blowtorch would have been on the bridge of the Titanic.

A seismic rethink is required and required swiftly.

If we are to regain any ground lost through this shambles that has been imposed on practitioners by remote "leaders" fluffing their way to their next step away from the classroom then I would hope that Nicola Sturgeon and Angela Constance look at some hard research and randomly visit teachers not perfumed in the fresh paint often used before a planned visit.

We should rejoin the educational world and use the Programme for International Student Assessment or an equivalent to assess how we are really doing. Our approaches should be assessed against research and performance from anywhere to see how it matches up. Any initiative should be planned with end user involvement, resourced and monitored for outcome, not compliance. A close look at those who have promoted CfE should be made and an honest analysis of the how it has impacted on pupils and staff sought. Only when this happens may improvement follow.

Paul Cochrane,

10 Grants Way,

Paisley.