Readers’ letters: Pisa figures don't tell the whole story on educational standards

Mathematics, reading and science are the only things measured by Pisa for 15-year-olds. I can read well, but at 15, I got a B in Higher maths, and took it no further, and had already dropped all science.

That means someone with an MA Hons degree from St Andrews University and a Teaching Certificate in French and history from Moray House (me) would, in all probability, dismally fail in Pisa terms.

The moaners who daily castigate Scotland and its elected government on its educational uselessness are using a severely flawed measurement for their denigration of our schoolchildren, simply to attempt to prove that the government needs replacing.

Looking south, I fail to see a shining example of perfection.

Brian Bannatyne-Scott, Edinburgh

Shabby treatment

It is indeed scandalous that Ian Murray was never told why he was unceremoniously sacked as Scottish Secretary (your report, 15 December). He was far from being the only one who was stunned.

Obviously, his removal from a job, which he loved, still hurts. With characteristic understatement, he writes that nobody told him that he was doing “a half decent job”. Half decent doesn’t hack it: he did a brilliant job.

It’s surely no coincidence that, for several years, Ian was Scotland's sole Labour MP. He is my MP and an outstanding one he is too. Even when he was Scottish Secretary, he tended his constituency, and many, including me, vote personally for him, rather than the Labour Party.

I’m surely not the only one who thought that his removal as Scottish Secretary would lead to deserved promotion. It says much for his loyalty and grace that he is putting his heart and soul into his new appointment. Ian Murray knows no other way.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

About turn

The brave Venezuelan opposition leader Marina Corina Machado had Guardian readers and the BBC queuing up to rejoice when she thwarted President Trump in being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October.

Now that she is condoning international piracy on the high seas, by backing Donald Trump’s strategy on Venezuela, will they rein back the praise?

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife

Dark place

Alex Orr argues (Letters, 15 December) that a Reform victory in the next election would take Scotland into a very dark place. This is typical of SNP scaremongering but understandable as after 18 years of total incompetence in government, the SNP can hardly fight the election on its achievements.

Thanks to the SNP, Scotland is already in a dark place. Driven by divisive politics, poor economic.performance, high taxes, an NHS on its knees, policing that’s underfunded (what happened to the extra 1,000 police officers?), education standards that have fallen from Scotland’s once-proud education system, universities on the road to bankruptcy, local government starved of cash, a soft-touch justice system that fails victims, roads that are full of potholes, and of course, the ferry fiasco and the failed promise to dual the A9.

I want the Scottish Parliament to use its extensive devolved powers to improve the economy, and have an economic environment that encourages job creation and small businesses. That will increase the tax take rather than increase taxes, and provide help for those genuinely in need.

So please stop the scaremongering, Mr Orr. Almost anybody could achieve more in a year or two than the SNP has done in nearly two decades.

Brian Barbour, Haddington, East Lothian

Binary choice

Alex Orr parrots the latest SNP line, that in forthcoming elections, it is either the SNP or Reform who can win. He should be careful – many are distinctly unimpressed at the SNP’s performance after 18 years so they may just take him at his word, and vote Reform. This could all backfirfe.

William Ballantine, Bo’ness, West Lothian

Over-governed

It is little wonder that our taxes are so high in this part of the UK to the north of Hadrian’s Wall.

We have an exceptionally high-cost administration to pay for in the form of the Scottish Parliament, much of which is sheer duplication of the government at Westminster. Together with the ever increasing costs of council tax payments in 2026, everyday life for most people is becoming very difficult.

It would appear to me that this relatively small part of the UK is grossly over-governed. Dare I suggest yet again that the formation of the Scottish Executive, now Government, was a foolish decision?

Robert IG Scott, Ceres, Fife

No slice of cake

“£280m to boost pride in Communities” ran your article on 12 December, reporting UK Government funds for 20 areas of the country judged eligible by the Labour government.

Alas, the apparent money-tree largesse announced by Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander masks the incoherent machine behind the distribution. If there is no political aim behind the allocation, allegedly a lift-up for Scotland’s most deprived areas, why is Kirkwall included, since the Orkney Islands have a £200m Special Reserve Fund; and the islands, with only 1.9 per cent in a deprived area, are the least disadvantaged part of Scotland? Is this a sop to the oil-related communities, who are to be otherwise to be run down by Labour and SNP policy alike?

Meanwhile my own electoral area, which has long been classed as highly deprived, finds itself by contrast adversely affected. Mayfield in Midlothian, despite being awarded £20m by the previous Conservative government, has now been stripped of that support despite a good business case showing upside for the public pound. With the billions of pounds of tax rises announced under Labour, there was surely no need to stoop so low and disown any area of Scotland previously supported.

Cllr Peter Smaill, Borthwick, Midlothian

Theatre giant

I’ve got memories of bus trips to see Stanley Baxter in the Christmas panto all through the 1960s, with dad’s work, then high tea with a tower of cakes and scones in a posh restaurant. Oh, there’s something in my eye now…

Steve Hayes, Leven, Fife

Careless words

So soon after the Manchester synagogue killings we have the Bondi Beach ones. The target in both cases was not Israel but ordinary Jewish people.

The massive campaign to vilify Israel has extreme consequences ranging from boycotts to ridiculous usage of the Eurovision Song contest as a political weapon – and to these killings. Scotland is not immune as a Scottish Jew was killed in the October 7 massacre yet we still see the SNP and even more so, the Scottish Greens, constantly pushing for punishment to be meted out to Israel without a thought as to how this may turn out.

Politicians ought to show responsibility and an even hand but Holyrood falls woefully short on this issue as with so many others. Words have consequences. Why don’t our politicians at Holyrood understand this?

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Two sides

Susan Dalgety is stretching things somewhat to claim that Sandie Peggie is a role model for Scottish women to look up to (Scotsman, 12 December). The tribunal panel determined that she lacked credibility as a witness. Nor did they believe that an offensive comment was simply dark humour or that derogatory remarks directed towards Dr Beth Upton was anything other than abuse directed at a work colleague.

Ms Dalgety – like most of the media – declined to give Dr. Upton’s side of the argument when covering the case. That stance becomes all the more extraordinary when you realise that she writes for a newspaper which has a commitment to impartiality in its masthead.

The panel itself found that far from being Ms Peggie’s harasser it was Dr Upton who was being harassed. In what kind of dystopian world does Ms Dalgety live where the trauma suffered by the abuser is deemed to deserve greater sympathy than that of her victim?

If we are to believe that Sandie Peggie’s views represent those of “every woman of a certain age” and that she stands “in the pantheon of feminist icons” as Ms Dalgety claims, then our society is in deep trouble.

Robert Menzies, Falkirk

No surrender

Donald Trump wants a quick resolution of the Ukraine war by Volodymyr Zelensky conceding Russian-occupied territories to Vladimir Putin.

Trump needs to get it into his head: Ukraine will not surrender. Too many Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have lost their lives to give up any of its territory on the whim of a man who dodged the Vietnam war draft by faking an injury.

He must stop showing his ill-informed contempt for European leaders and show a bit of backbone himself, come out from behind his desk and in his Nato leadership capacity tell his friend Vladimir Putin that the only way this war can be ended is for all Russian troops to be withdrawn back over the border to the motherland.

Doug Morrison, Tenterden Kent

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