YOUR article on the Scottish Qualifications Authority examination results this year makes interesting reading (“Swinney under fire as Higher pass rate falls”, The Herald August 7). I believe that the annual obsession with grade supremacy seems all part of the academic Olympiad which fosters a divisive and educationally divided society.

I find it strange that the SNP Government, in advocating independence, often wishes to compare Scotland with the similarly-sized Finland. However, any similarity it seeks to point out stops short of wishing to mimic the different, and internationally recognised, Finnish education system.

Scotland remains fixated with attainment comparisons, statistical trends and national results analysis being part of an often-unfair school inspection device. Mr Swinney should start trusting our teachers to conduct their own final examinations in line with his wish to devolve more power to schools. Those pupils who chose to go to university will, after all, not be sitting nationally-administered examinations for their degree, so why is their secondary school not considered professional enough?

The pupils who did well in this year's diet of exams have displayed that they can comply with the learning process necessary to pass and therefore be likely to conform in other ways within society. Many pupils, particularly ones from areas of deprivation, come from social environments where in many contexts, conformity is not viewed as a strength.

However, the way in which our present Government in Scotland visualises education, unwilling to embrace alternative philosophies, suggests to me that things can only get worse. Instead of preparing pupils for university we should be preparing them for life. If pressures continue as they are, schools will squeeze the curriculum as tight as possible to obtain incremental gains in annual “A” passes in academic subjects and the traditional breadth of subject choice in secondary establishments will wither on the vine.

Bill Brown, Milngavie.