Reform, not cash
Our state schools will remain unfit for purpose if we continue to believe that Scottish education was once a world leader and we can regain top spot by throwing money at it.
The former is Brigadoon fantasy, and the much vaunted Highland lad o’ pairts attending university before the Second World War was rarely of a lower social class than the local dominie’s child.
At its 1950s best, it was a serviceable and diverse system of high, technical and junior secondary schools which operated under practical and pragmatic local councillors.
Today we have a depressingly uniform system in thrall to comprehensive ideology and an educational soviet in the most centralised and over-governed nation in Europe.
Pouring yet more money into this unreformed monolith is pure waste and our schools and regions need greater autonomy to promote excellence through competition and choice.
Internationally, successful schools with limited resources use a grammar school approach at the top end – but can you imagine our leftist teacher unions supporting that reform?
(Dr) John Cameron
Howard Place
St Andrews