Sir: The decision to provide nursery education for all is
only too typical of the current Tory approach to education. This involves a frenzied determination to toe the current trendy line — even if this means apeing the doctrinaire obsessions of the se-called progressives, many of whom welcome any attempt to weaken family responsibility. The absence of fundamental brainwork by Conservatives is glaringly apparent: once again no heed is taken of developments elsewhere. American disillusionment with nursery schooling is ignored — just as it was in the case of comprehensive schooling. Already the ghastly results of that fiasco are becoming only too apparent as standards of secondary schooling plummet to hitherto unheard of low levels of work and conduct. Now more public money is to be expended on yet another dubious development at a time when we should be examining most carefully every item of public expenditure.
Sharp-witted parents are already questioning the value of existing nursery schooling: one mother complained bitterly to me recently that her young son seemed to spend his time fooling around doing nothing in particular. To her, the word ' school ' still implied some kind of useful training and work, even at a tender age! Now she is teaching her son to read herself and is feeling much happier. It sertainly behoves all parents in these trendy times to keep a close eye on schools at all stages when so much tomfoolery masquerades as educational progress, even from the earliest years.
J. H. K. Lockhart 21B King's Avenue, London W5
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