18 JULY 1981, Page 17

Towards apartheid

Sir: What a pity it is that such an intelligent man as Mr Auberon Waugh can be so silly at times (27 June). The Rampton Committee on the 'under-achievement' of West Indian pupils in UK schools is attempting to uncover any basic grounds for disadvantage that may exist, with a view to the possibility of correcting or compensating for them. The current apartheid education policy in South Africa takes children from an economically and culturally disadvantaged setting, and then spends considerably less on their schooling than on the more favoured. To see any similarity between these two attitudes is to be seriously ignorant of the facts, or else to be wilfully obtuse. J. M. Walpole

P.O. Box 24, Legon, Ghana, West Africa