Educational levelling
Sir: Alec Stanley (April 12) utters the very "envious howls of the egalitarian left" mentioned by Dr Boyson. Envy used to be called a deadly sin, meaning deadly to those who succumbed to it. Now it is politically fashionable, but it still deadens the minds of those who succumb to it.
Mr Stanley says that, if parents have the right to buy better-class education for their children, should they also be able to buy better medical treatment, bribe lifeboat crews on sinking ships, etc, and"where is the line to be drawn ?" With his thoughtless examples, he has already drawn it. It is between parents willing to pay money for their children's benefit, and people willing to pay money for their own benefit. Mr Stanley cannot see the difference between selflessness and selfishness.
Nor can he see any virtue in parental interest, and all he is saying is that it has got to be stifled. The wonderful argument used by the egalitarian left to justify this arid doctrine is that most parents have never had any choice, anyway, so that no parents can have any choice now. It would be less emotional, more logical, and to the benefit of children in the future to argue that more and more parents be free to exercise their parental interest: that is, to be human. Mr Stanley is saying that, because the resources have never existed in the past to give all parents a full say in their children's education, no parent in the future will have any say at all.
Mr Stanley cites the "simple statement" that children should have an equal right to education. So they should. But the egalitarian left transform this into the dogma that all children will have the same education forced upon thern, which is anything but the same thing. And they totally ignore the explicit basis of all UK Education Acts at least since WW2; that each child shall be educated according to age, aptitude and ability: and broadly in line with the wishes of the parents. For this the egalitarian left substitute the twin ideas of "no selection" and "district comprehensives". That is, that each child shall be educated according to age and parents' address.
Nobody who can propose anything as daft as that should be saying anything whatever about education. W. S. Brownlie 19 Hunterhill Road, Paisley
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