I FIND it astonishing to read that Tilda Swinton, as a director of the loss making Drumduan House private school, is seeking funding from the Scottish Government to develop her “experimental” school (“Swinton touts Steiner school to ‘infiltrate’ school system”, The Herald, January 7).
At a pivotal time for Scottish education when we are poised for the first widespread teachers’ strike since the 1980s and find it increasingly difficult to provide adequate resources for state run schools, her request seems not only unrealistic but brazen.
She is seeking to use her celebrity status (and a modicum of flattery) to persuade the Education Secretary John Swinney to “subsidise” the fee-paying Drumduan House under the unfeasible guise that this will provide a model school for others to copy in the state sector.
Ms Swinton is from a privileged background and out of touch with the practical realities of educational provision in the state sector. Her request for any kind of government assistance must be rejected and treated with the disdain it deserves.
Owen Kelly,
8 Dunvegan Drive,
Stirling.
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