IT is easy to sympathise with Denis Bruce’s frustration at the current state of Scottish education (Letters, September 30). Reality certainly appears to be trapped between the relentlessly positive spin of the Scottish Government and the relentlessly negative spin from its political opponents. It would, indeed, be nice if the Government were to acknowledge problems more readily and if its opponents were to give us some occasional hints as to how they would do things better.
However, I am not convinced that the review he proposes will move us any further forward. The problems are well known. It is solutions that are hard to come by. Perhaps a more productive approach would be to find out what the “customers” expect.
Towards the end of the national testing era I was often left with the feeling that my pupils were in school largely to produce results that would show that the school and I were doing a good job. The perceived need to get continuously improving test and exam results, high proportions of our students going on to university and higher rankings in international league tables seems to me to be another version of the external determinism mentioned in a recent letter. Can we not determine for ourselves what we need, want and expect from our education system?
I do disagree with Mr Bruce when he talks about “taking it (the system) back”. If we wish to improve things we have to move forward from the notion of a Golden Age of Scottish Education when we were on top of the world (before international league tables were introduced). Education is and has been for a number of years one of the biggest open goals in politics. There is always something that can be seen as going wrong.
For all the problems created during its application the principles of Curriculum for Excellence, which appeared towards of my teaching career, gave me back the feeling that there was some long-term aim to the work I was doing with my students other than the production of results. More attention to the concept of positive destinations for school leavers, giving university, college, apprenticeships or simply just getting a job equal status might help us to move forward to the stage when we are actually helping our students to achieve their potential. Getting it right for every child, anybody?
Robin Irvine, Helensburgh.
I NOTE with pleasure Ann Fotheringham's article ("Inspired by a love of learning and family", The Herald, September 30). The media at present is so full of doom and gloom it was most refreshing and inspiring to read the story of her husband graduating from the Open University at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.
If more of us could be inspired by a love of learning and family the world would indeed bea better place.
Ron Lavalette, Ardrossan.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel