RECENTLY, some teacher-training students have expressed anxiety about the unduly theoretical nature of their courses.

What is the response of John Swinney, the Cabinet Secretary for Education?

It is to consider giving “young people a greater role in teaching courses in universities … asking children to tell students what they think makes a good teacher”.

Jackie Brock, the chief executive of the charity Children in Scotland, is in agreement: “‘It makes sense to involve children and young people in supporting and contributing to teacher training.”

Ask a child what she or he wants from a teacher and she or he will say: “Make learning easy”; “Give me a good report” and other responses that will be in a similar vein.

No child is going to say, “Make me persevere with tasks that I find difficult”.

Yet this is the kind of thing children should be taught to think about.

It is no wonder that Scottish education standards are declining. Apart from anything else, this proposal recommends an abnegation of responsibility by those who are paid to design and implement teacher-training.

Anyone interested in education in Scotland must be being driven to despair by the incompetence of the present regime.

Jill Stephenson,

Glenlockhart Valley,

Edinburgh.