Educational systems
Sir: According to Mr Reginald Prentice, Education Secretary, the introduction of Comprehensive Schools and the abolition of the eleven plus examination will prevent the separation of the "sheep from the goats." It has often been the call of Socialists for the equality of opportunity, but, if this is what they want, such proposals will surely remove much of this. Many people are agreed: parents, politicians, and educationalists among them, that what has been offered is highly ineffective. Few schoolchildren will either get what they want or what they need to complete a full education. My own fortunes took me, for a time, to a school operating under the much heralded and acclaimed Leicestershire comprehensive scheme. Here the system was highly inefficient, running three entirely different courses side by side, with only partial integration. Those who needed encouragement and up-grading rarely got it. In fact what it produced were 'Jacks of All Trades' — not the specialists necessary in a highly technical and diversive economy. Only the really bright ones prospered. Leaving this school. I was indeed privileged to go to a most famous public school. There are those who seek the demise of such institutions, but I am among the protagonists who believe the system second to none. Not only was my grounding extensive but also the facilities there were among the best in the country. Furthermore, being a boarding school, time permitted a wider range of activities. Surely then, a true improvement in this held would be shown by a movement towards this kind of schooling, not away from it. In a recent BBC Television programme Mr Prentice himself defended Labour MPs who (in his own words) "made a personal choice" to send their children to private schools. But yet he still seeks to devalue their merits. Numerous councils, Conservative ones among them, now have been directed in an undemocratic manner to submit plans in which they can have no faith. And ironically this is done at a time when the Government is not in a position to support their words with financial assistance.
I cannot believe these matters have been fully investigated — indeed had they been, then a better system would surely have been forthcoming.
David Dixon Netherfield, 130 Stoughton Road, Oadby, Leicester.
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