Sir: Your leading article on 'Standards in Schools' (January 6)
contains statements surprising to one who has been working for ten years on the surveys conducted by LEA — the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. For example, is it a fact that "Scottish children emerge from their schools more literate, more competent, and better equipped for life, than do English children "?
The lEA reports on the survey of six subjects in twenty countries (including England and Scotland) will be published in nine volumes in the course of 1973. I must not anticipate their publication, but I think that my IEA colleagues will forgive me if I go so far as to say that they will not be found to lend much support to the strictures on the English system contained in the article.
From the last paragraph of the article one can only conclude that the writer is unaware that the Certificate of Secondary Education has existed for a decade.
G. F. Peaker
Michael's Fold, Grasmere, Ambleside, Westmorland
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