WITH regard to access to the professions, why Richard Hunter (Letters, May 28) would believe that I would wish to reduce standards anywhere in the education system beats me.

Likewise Sandy Gemmill (Letters, May 28) questions positive discrimination within the selection process; again I feel this is a sticking-plaster remedy and avoids the real problem.

Having been educated solely within the state system yet having sent my children to private schools this could make me a class traitor or a hypocrite depending on your views, alternatively I could be labelled a pragmatist or realist. Academic attainment is only one reason for paying through the nose to educate your children in the private sector. The major one is social engineering. What you are saying to your offspring is these are your peers, these will be your friends, this is your station in society.

Most evidence points to there being a correlation between a child's IQ and the social status of its parents and there is a direct relationship between social status, wealth and access to private education. So when it comes to entering the professions the child from the private sector is likely to have exceeded the minimal academic entry requirements for whatever the course and will have been coached to do their "homework" in "shadowing" a practitioner in their chosen profession and jumped all the hurdles necessary to demonstrate that they are just the type that the institution wants to recruit. The child from the state sector is less likely to be as well armed when being interviewed. Is it morally justifiable to reject a better qualified applicant from the private sector to give the place to a less well-prepared applicant from a state school?

If society perceives it has a problem with those in the professions or positions of influence not representing the full spectrum of society then the problem is far greater than simply which school you went to. We live in a society stratified by class and the major determinant of where you come in the pecking order is wealth. Until that changes and meanwhile as standards of basic numeracy and literacy apparently continue to decline in state schools I'm afraid it's a case of "if you can't beat them join them" as far as education is involved, that is if you can afford it.

David J Crawford

Flat 3/3, 131 Shuna Street, Glasgow.