Education standards

Press, 30 May 1987, Page 20

Education standards

Sir,—The reason Mrs AgnesMary Brooke’s small son, Tim, is not being taught correct English at school (May 23) is that the education system has been taken over by pinky liberals who have no idea of the meaning of gender and are passing on their moral insipidity and mental slackness to their charges. Such permissiveness would not be tolerated in a proper socialist country like China or Cuba, and we must ask ourselves if our moral and intellectual fibre is being crushed in order to soften us up for easier manipulation by outside forces. Since the State schools are suffering a heavy infestation of liberals, who have become deeply entrenched, we must look to our private schools to supply the disciplined, educated citizens of the future, both in the upper echelons and among rank-and-file workers, to maintain our international competitiveness.— Yours, etc., TED HICKS. May 27, 1987.

Sir, —As primary teachers with degrees in English, science and education, we take exception to the cynical, emotive and unbalanced feature article “Why Tim is so bored at school” (May 23). The article is replete with derisive comments, unsubstantiated views, and outlandish generalisations. Space does not prevent a thorough rebuttal. We think “The Press” owes it to the teaching profession to publish a counter-piece, written by someone who knows what happens in primary schools, who understands the “process” of becoming a writer, who knows something of the well-documented research on language acquisition and the futility of traditional grammar lessons taken out of context. — Yours, etc.,

NICK AND JAE MAJOR. May 28, 1987. Sir, —Our numerous proponents of educational changes remind me of a visitor to the zoo who does not notice an elephant among all the other much smaller animals. All the modern and back-to-teasics proponents do not see the. nitty-gritty of the problem. Our children waste

many years on learning how to spell while, for example, Russian children surge ahead in arts and sciences. Why? Because in English there is no direct correspondence between the speech sounds and their graphic representations or letters. Russians have had two spelling reforms in the last two centuries while the English have had none since Adam. Is it not time to close the gap between the vowel sounds and their corresponding letters by changing the letters to fit the sounds? It may prove very costly and unpopular, but the benefits will outweigh the losses by far.— Yours, etc.,

E. STECIURENKO. May 28, 1987.