I WAS the proud father of the daughter pictured with three of her fellow pupils from The Glasgow Academy in The Herald, showing them celebrating their excellent exam results (“Private schools make the grade as nine in 10 Highers result in a pass”, September 16).

The moment was somewhat soured by Kevin McKenna. In his article (“Advantages enjoyed by private schools simply cannot be justified, The Herald, September 16)”, he describes the parents who send their children to private schools as the “social elite”.

He complains that the tax advantages received by private schools should be abolished but fails to mention that it costs the Government an average of £5,800 a year between primary and secondary to educate a child and, with 30,000 pupils in Scotland attending private schools, that amounts to a saving of £174,000,000 a year. Is that not enough?

Private schools have teachers teaching the exact same curriculum towards the same exams, the only difference being that they are better at it. Making private schools more expensive for parents by removing the tax advantage would surely make them more elite.

Most parents who send their children to private schools are hard-working, many on the fringe of being able to afford the fees. Since the Scottish Government can’t guarantee us a good education for our children we are doing something about it.

I make my money digging up roads and replacing them. I would welcome Mr McKenna spending a day with me on a site and explaining to me my “privilege of the elite”.

Gavin Bell, Newmill, Milton of Campsie, Glasgow.

KEVIN McKenna quotes persuasive statistics in support of his argument that private schools should be abolished. The fact that 71 per cent of our top military officers and 74 per cent of the legal profession attended a fee paying school suggests an unhealthy balance. However, when one looks at what is happening on the ground it is my impression that having had or not having had a private education makes no difference to a person’s ability to get on in life. Indeed, it appears that an academically challenged young person leaving school and hoping to go to university might be at a disadvantage to his or her counterpart from the state sector. After university an employer is more likely to be influenced by the course and university the young person attended and the results achieved. Thereafter progress is determined far more by an individual’s ability in previous jobs.

One statistic Kevin McKenna should look at is the percentage of military officers and those in the legal profession who send their children to private schools. The very act of sending children to a private school might be what maintains the position and standing these individuals have secured. The children will receive a good education but they will only achieve success if they have the ability to be successful.

Kevin McKenna calls into question the charitable status of private schools. I take the view that to educate children is a charitable activity. If individuals are prepared to pay for that charitable activity to be undertaken, that relieves the rest of us having to pay for the education of young people whose parents can afford to pay for that education. I hate to think what the increase in the Council Tax would be in Edinburgh if all the private schools in the city were abolished, and what would happen to house prices in the catchment areas around the schools.

Sandy Gemmill, 40 Warriston Gardens, Edinburgh.

IN Edinburgh 25 per cent of children are educated privately. Transference of even 20 per cent of those to maintained schools would led to a major hike to the city’s already stretched education bill.

In 2014 the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) reported that, since 2007, it had reviewed all 52 of Scotland’s independent schools on its register and none had been removed for failing the charity test. So they passed an independent public benefit test to justify their charitable status. Apparently, this was not good enough as the OSCR went on to warn these schools that they would face a ‘’higher level of vigilance’’ in future.

Then, in 2016, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations called for a review of the present system that ‘’allows some charities to restrict access to services through high fees which exclude the majority from benefitting’’.

The independent schools bring major benefits to our education system and economy. In all fairness to them, it would be interesting to know whether the OSCR has seen fit to issue similar warnings to the other 24,045 charities on its register that have passed its tests; and if not, why not.

Doug Clark, 6 Muir Wood Grove, Currie, Midlothian.

I AM a member of a group despised by the Left; in other words, a working-class upstart.

I aspired, I succeeded and my children were educated privately.

In his final paragraph, Kevin McKenna states that those “who attend these schools are taught by teachers whose education was bought and paid for by the rest of us”.

Not so. I paid taxes, both direct and indirect. I also paid private school fees.

I paid twice for my children’s education. That was my choice. I am not seeking sympathy.

William Durward, 20 South Erskine Park, Bearsden, Glasgow.

I WAS interested to read the headline in The Herald on Saturday (“Private schools make the grade as nine in 10 Highers result in a pass”).

Ambitious schools with a care for their examination track records have always been inclined to weed out potentially failing pupils before making up their presentation lists.

This used to be by fiat, regardless of the wishes of pupils or parents.

Latterly it has been by – often very sensible – advice to try something less demanding.

Fee-paying (“independent”) schools, where exam results have a cash value, have always been under greatest pressure to do this.

An argument can be made that your headline might well have been drafted by the Scottish Council for Independent Schools.

Without telling us the presentation policy of the schools in question it really does not have much to say that is very informative.

Martin Axford, 18 Bonar Crescent, Bridge of Weir.