As a member of the committee that produced the report in 1992 entitled Upper Secondary Education in Scotland, I was delighted to read that John Howie (May 5) has broken cover in the columns of this newspaper to state just how good a report it was and how relevant its recommendations continue to be at a time when the Education Minister is pondering reform of the post-compulsory stages of the curriculum. I have not colluded with John Howie in writing this. Indeed, earlier this year (January 3) you published a letter in which I also envisaged Ms Hyslop dusting down her copy of Howie and re-reading it with care - especially what it has to say on a Scottish Baccalaureate.

Professor Howie is, however, too nice a man to remind us why it was that his recommendations were set aside. It is, I believe, salutary to remember those reasons, if only because we now have a one-year- old administration in Scotland presumably anxious to avoid past mistakes. First, there was the matter of cost: to implement the radical outcome proposed by Howie would have been expensive - as all Rolls-Royce solutions inevitably are. It was the best, and the best was adjudged, simply, too dear to be afforded. Higher Still would do instead - cheap and not so cheerful.

Secondly, as I wrote in my January letter, the older universities - of which, Professor Howie was then a distinguished representative - torpedoed his reforms on the altogether disingenuous ground that they were divisive and elitist. This was the pot calling the kettle black. The real reason - as I saw very clearly, being a senior university administrator myself, and a member of the Scottish Universities Council on Entrance - was that they feared for the survival of the four-year honours degree course. They were right to do so but they were wrong to disguise their fears under the pretext of something different.

The third reason for the failure of Howie is one that has not to my knowledge been aired before. It is that not all members of the committee were loyal to the report. At least two went on record after its publication to declare publicly that they had gone down the Damascus road and, unlike the apostle, had emerged full of doubt and hesitation. This act of betrayal - for that is what it was - helped enormously to convince those who needed convincing that the report was flawed.

I support John Howie in his bid for the monumental and radical document that bears his name to be brought out of obscurity and for its contents and recommendations to be re-read. He will know - as I certainly do - that many of those who once condemned it now rue their hasty and ill-considered verdicts and are busy re-examining its words of wisdom. They will be concluding, as some of us have never wavered in concluding, that Howie is indeed the way forward.

Ronald Crawford, Newton Mearns. It's good to see John Howie still crusading for his committee's reforms. His blueprint for secondary education in Scotland was right, and should have been adopted at the time. Let's hope its principles do find their way into the new plans currently being considered.

Differentiated pathways are good on one condition: that school students and their parents have the absolute right to access, with advice, any of the range of available study programs. That will make all the difference.

Hugh Millar, Ayr.