Letter: Rhetoric and reality in education reforms

Sir: The article today by John Patten, the Secretary of State for Education, was interesting, not in what it said, but in what it left unsaid.

I failed to see any mention of the raising of the school leaving age in his account of educational reforms in the Sixties. Those of us old enough to remember this will know that by the mid-Seventies there were young people attaining GCE certificates who would have left school at 14 with no paper qualifications at all a decade earlier. That was progressive education.

Mr Patten also omits to tell us what will become of those children whose talents do not fall within the boundaries perceived to be necessary for specialisation. Children's talents are diverse and individual. There is no locality that could provide enough schools to enable each child to specialise in what he or she does best. As a result, there will be children who are not considered good enough. It is unlikely that they will be able to feel that they are getting the best out of the education system.

Only when each child is valued for what he or she can do well, be it the gift of passing exams, or of making people laugh, will we achieve true reform in education. That, not the national curriculum, is what will give real choice and diversity.

Yours sincerely,

ANN BARLOW

Plumley,

Cheshire

5 April