IT is interesting that Ian Graham's letter (March 26) criticising the social impact of the Scottish Government's policies for continuing education coincided with your report on recruitment to the Scottish universities ("Universities are making progress on fair access for poorer pupils", The Herald, March 26).

Free university education fits in perfectly with the Scottish self-image. Those dominie-inspired lads o' pairts from wee country schools, and the Livingstone mill-boys with their bags of meal, contrast neatly with the plutocratic fee-paying English. In the real world, it seems, things are rather different.

Scottish universities recruit a higher proportion of their students from private education than English ones, although the private sector is comparatively much bigger in England. Only 26 per cent of Scottish university students are recruited from "the lowest social classes" compared with 32.6 per cent in the UK as a whole. One is led to suspect that free university education, like the frozen council tax, is perhaps a targeted middle class electoral perk.

If this was the whole story, it would be easy to put it right. The university intake could be monitored more closely, and the universities persuaded or bribed to recruit more from the post-industrial areas and the urban schemes. But the social impact of Michael Russell's and Angela Constance's policies - and I think the ministers should be named - will remain. The free university places have been largely paid for by cuts in further education, and at a particular social level.

The courses provided for achieving school pupils aspiring to be technicians and technologists have been largely unaffected; what has disappeared has been the provision for those already disadvantaged by education. Uncertificated courses designed to attract former school drop-outs back into education without fear of examination failure have disappeared. So have many of the part time courses for unemployed young people, and for single parents with limited child care. The Scottish Government's rhetoric about social inclusion is heavily contradicted by its policies for continuing education.

Martin Axford,

18 Bonar Crescent,

Bridge of Weir.

I BELIEVE that the headline "State funds + no council control = the best performing secondary" (The Herald, March 27), while being certainly succinct, is misleading.

The implied compliments extended to Jordanhill School require to be tempered by acknowledgement of the following relevant factors:

* The catchment area of the school consists of a leafy, suburban part of Glasgow , where there are few signs of poverty and economic hardship and the distractions which these conditions bring to most people subjected to them.

* The existence, in most of the cases of children attending the school, of committed , middle-class parents , many with professional backgrounds, with high aspirations for the future careers of their children. There is, of course, nothing offensive about that, but the fact has to be taken into account.

* Where extra tutoring is felt necessary, parents, in most cases, will have both the will and the means to make it available.

* The competitive , academic environment engendered within the school, with the background of high expectations at home, will lead to many children interacting with each other to perform to their potential. Again, of course, there is nothing wrong with that, but its existence should be kept in mind.

Even with the introduction of so-called "virtual comparators", these league tables , in my view, have to be approached with considerable circumspection with regard to how well particular schools are performing. The effort and application of thos, responsible for the operation of schools in less salubrious parts of the country and the teaching of children from less privileged backgrounds, should never be overlooked and undervalued.

Ian W Thomson,

38 Kirkintilloch Road, Lenzie.

HAVING considered the school league tables I looked hard for something that would surprise me or I wouldn't have guessed prior to their publication. What they confirm is what everyone knows but is somehow reluctant to admit: parental ambition drives school performance.

We need to break the cycle of low expectation that is endemic to our poorer areas. Jordanhill, Newton Mearns, Giffnock have high- performing pupils because they have high-performing parents. Parents that in the words of Barack Obama have told their kids: "Yes we can" from the day they started infant school.

If we are to break the cycle of poor attainment in the most deprived areas both parents and pupils must be given the desire and confidence to break out of poverty through education.

Robert Gemmell,

14 Bramble Wynd, Port Glasgow.