Letters: Education selection

Published: 01 February 2007

Selecting 'gifted and talented' pupils is gimmicky and divisive

Sir: Over a number of years there has been criticism from many quarters about selection within education. Many grammar schools have been phased out, largely because it was thought unfair to select pupils on ability at the age of 11. However, in the case of the 11-plus, it could at least be argued all pupils had an equal chance on the day of the exam.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said about the Government's "gifted and talented" scheme whereby 5 to 10 per cent of pupils are selected from the age of six, and have time and resources allocated to them. Selection is left to the teachers, meaning that it is liable to be very subjective and raises the danger of favouritism.

The Department for Education and Skills' website advising teachers on how to recognise "gifted and talented" pupils includes characteristics such as "not necessarily well-behaved or well liked by others". One of the pupils in my seven-year-old daughter's school has been selected on the basis of "leadership". I find it difficult to believe that teachers are able to spot leadership potential among six-year-olds.

The schools are told to select between 5 and 10 per cent of their pupils as gifted or talented, but what if they have more than that percentage? What if 5 per cent equates to three pupils, and the school has four almost equally gifted pupils in numeracy and literacy, a couple of artists and a potential Wayne Rooney? Who misses out on the chance of extra tuition and why?

I, along with most parents I think, expect children to be given a level playing field and the basics of a good education. What we don't expect is that 95 per cent of children will be excluded from something at the age of six with gimmicky, and divisive, government schemes.

GARY LAGO

WALSALL, WEST MIDLANDS

End poverty and the population will fall

Sir: The all-party parliamentary group on population are in danger of putting the cart before the horse in calling for birth rates to be curbed to beat global poverty ("Birth rates 'must be curbed to win war on global poverty' ", 31 January).

In country after country, starting with our own, it has been seen that birth rates did not come down until the poor became convinced that the children they had would survive to adulthood. There are a number reasons for this, including the natural desire to ensure the continuation of one's genes, and the need for someone to provide support in old age.

Although it is of course worthwhile to ensure that those who want to plan their families have the means to do so, it is pointless to exhort the poor to have fewer children unless that is something they want for themselves - and coercion has a poor record as well as being ethically dubious.

Give the poor clean water, sanitation, education, health care, access to credit and/or decent, adequately paid employment and the population problem will solve itself. The reverse, alas, is not true.

BILL LINTON

LONDON N13

Sir: The report on alleviating global poverty rightly points out the need to take on "the religious ideology of neoconservatists in the White House against contraception".

However, it fails to tackle the considerably greater impact of Catholic doctrine. While many Catholics in the developed world choose to ignore Catholic teachings on contraception, the same cannot be said for hundreds of millions of people in the developing world. There is a lot of evidence that giving women access to education and empowering them to control their own fertility can lift a society out of poverty in just one generation, and the Vatican's refusal to reconsider its doctrines on contraception is immensely damaging.

HANNE STINSON

CHIEF EXECUTIVE BRITISH HUMANIST ASSOCIATION LONDON WC1

Yes, we are still talking about Iraq

Sir: Mary Dejevsky ("Where is our national soul-searching on Iraq?" 30 January) asks why we are not in the throes of a discussion about the war, as is happening in the US.

The answer is, it depends where you look. In meetings up and down the country people gather to discuss these questions. They ask most urgently, will there be a similar attack on Iran? Thousands give out leaflets and sign petitions in opposition to the war on terror. Hundreds of thousands have demonstrated since the invasion of Iraq, and will do so again this 24 February.

Parliament and much of the media seems oblivious to this debate, which also goes on in shops and offices around the country. Last week's parliamentary debate was a damp squib - because the two main parties agree to keep it off the agenda.

But we shouldn't confuse this denial of democracy with lack of concern. The anti-war movement remains the biggest grassroots campaign in this country. With Gordon Brown and David Cameron following the Bush/Blair strategy, it looks like remaining so.

LINDSEY GERMAN

STOP THE WAR COALITION LONDON WC1

Sir: Dominic Lawson sneers at Jane Fonda for her stance against war, yet makes no mention that she was correct all along (30 January). There never was a danger of East and South-east Asia collapsing into Communism under the so-called "domino theory", and the brutality of the Americans in Vietnam has long been recognised, at least by the rest of the world, if not by American leaders.

In the same way, most of the world - including America - now sees the Iraq war as a folly that has had disastrous consequences, and from which there seems no clear way out. "Hanoi Jane", far from posturing, as Lawson claims, is making a clear statement about the revulsion that many of us feel about such military adventurism.

FRED LITTEN

CROYDON, SURREY

Cameron leads fight against extremism

Sir: I responded to David Cameron's attack on extremist Islam with relief and hope ("Cameron attacks 'hate' of Muslim extremists", 30 January). Too long has this country, under the veil of multiculturalism, allowed the principles of liberty and free speech to protect those who are fundamentally opposed to these very principles.

I would extend Cameron's argument. Unless the Government actively prevents the spread of teaching that espouses the right to stone to death homosexuals, to stone to death rape victims and to force the wearing of full veil (a tradition absent from the actual teachings of the Koran), foul, racist organisations like the BNP will grow and grow.

The Tories have a real opportunity here. As the leader of a party identified with British values and tradition, Cameron has the chance to convince voters of all creeds that the future of Britain is multicultured, yet proud, and insistent on liberal, secular values.

JOSEPH DE LACEY

LONDON W11

Sir: I am a Muslim; I do not consider myself to be an extremist. I have friends of all faiths and none, I get on with my neighbours, both Muslim and non-Muslim, I am a governor at my local (non-faith) primary school, and I work with non-Muslims as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language.

However, I do try to live according to shari'a law. I pray five times a day, I refrain from alcohol and eating pork, I have a shari'a-compliant Islamic bank account which does not pay interest, my wife wears the hijab (as a matter of choice) in accordance with the shari'a, and I support the right of Muslim parents to send their children to faith schools.

I am deeply offended by David Cameron's attempt to equate ordinary Muslims simply trying to follow the dictates of our faith with the odious, racist thugs of the BNP. Contrary to his assertion that those seeking to live their lives according to Islamic law are divisive, it is politicians like Mr Cameron, with their ill-considered attempts to demonise the Muslim community in order to gain white votes, who are dividing society into "us" and "them".

MUHAMMAD WARAQAH WILLIAMS

LONDON E12

The uncertainty of science

Sir: I was sorry to see your leading article (30 January) perpetuating some common misunderstandings about science. I doubt that any scientist would ever say that scientific understanding ever stops being provisional. If they did, they would be forecasting the day when they would shut up their laboratories and go home.

Uncertainty is part of the essential nature of science and all that happens when a theory becomes accepted is that the uncertainty tends towards zero. Neither does science yield "the truth", whatever that is. Scientific theories are models that accurately describe what is observed and allow predictions to be made. These are important aspects of science that differentiate it from superstitious and religious beliefs which are characterised by certainty founded on dogma.

IAN QUAYLE

FOWNHOPE, HEREFORDSHIRE

Justice system fails victims of rape

Sir: What is it about the crime of rape that politicians, the judicial system, the police and the public find so hard to understand? The percentage of rapes reported to the police in 2004 in England and Wales which resulted in conviction was just 5.29 per cent, the lowest rate for 35 years ("Rape victims 'failed by police and courts' ", 31 January). This indicates the extent to which the current legal framework and criminal justice system are failing thousands of women who are victims of sexual violence

As the only women's organisation in England and Wales providing a dedicated and free legal advice help line for women who have experienced sexual violence, we are appalled at the continuing failure of the political and legal system to provide women with justice. How many more women have to experience rape before this social anathema receives the attention that it so demands? The statistics are even worse if you take into account the very many women who are raped regularly by their partners as part of the domestic violence that they tell us about but feel unable to report.

We urge the Government to fully endorse the proposals in the consultation paper "Convicting rapists and protecting victims". To do otherwise is meaningless rhetoric and denies women a real opportunity to obtain justice.

RANJIT KAUR

DIRECTOR, RIGHTS OF WOMEN LONDON EC1

Sir: Why did your correspondent Deborah Orr feel it necessary during the course of an otherwise thought-provoking item to repeat the hoary myth that juries who acquit in rape cases must have regarded the allegation as false. ("How can juries understand rape unless the full horror is explained to them?", 31 January). It is overwhelmingly likely they have simply not been sure it was true. There is a difference.

It is also wrong to suggest that complainants are required to describe what happened to them "in open court". In almost all such cases now, complainants are entitled to give evidence either by video link or behind screens.

The real issue is that juries in the vast majority of such cases are confronted by having to decide between the conflicting accounts of two (usually) young people who have each had far too much to drink where the consequences of a conviction will be an inevitable and lengthy prison sentence and registration as a "sex offender". It is little wonder juries may regard the decision in many such cases as difficult particularly when they may well consider the crime alleged to represent at worst an error of judgement.

MICHAEL SCHOLES

BARRISTER EXCHANGE CHAMBERS, LIVERPOOL

Tories on top?

Sir: "Tories open up poll lead as support for Labour crumbles" (31 January) is a strange headline for a story showing the Conservatives have lost the support of 2 per cent of the electorate while Labour is down eight points and the Lib Dems have increased their share of the poll by 50 per cent since December.

HARVEY COLE

WINCHESTER

Screen sex

Sir: Philip Hensher appears to think that gays are singled out for misrepresentation when the film industry portrays sex ("Watch out: it's another sad and lonely lesbian", 30 Jamuary). I suspect that gay relationships get at least as favourable treatment as marriage. When was the last time you saw a film in which two people, happily married to each other, had enjoyable sex? When I saw What Lies Beneath, the opening scenes of married bliss prepared me for the fact that Harrison Ford's character would later try to murder his wife.

PADDY BENSON

BARNSTON, MERSEYSIDE

Faith issues

Sir: On the issue of gay adoption, the Government is (not uncharacteristically) facing two ways at once. On the one hand it promotes faith schools with enthusiasm and on the other, when the faithful invoke the principles implicit in those very same faiths, it denies their right of conscience in a craven response to vociferous opposition from the politically correct.

DAVID SMITH

CLYRO, POWYS

Global transportation

Sir: I have read the correspondence on superfluous packaging and irrational importation. Here, we have a case of transportation stupidity that beats the band. Fish caught off Canada's east coast are flown to China to be gutted and filleted, then flown back here for sale.

F P HUGHES

HAWKESBURY, ONTARIO, CANADA

Sir: In his exemplary round-up of global warming deniers' myths, Johann Hari (25 January) has no need to apologise for earlier warnings of global cooling. In the absence of human activity, the planet might be heading for another Ice Age. Dust, ash and industrial pollution (now reduced) perhaps did produce net cooling by reflecting solar radiation in the mid 20th century. In 1971 Stephen Schneider suggested the possibility of a cooling trend. He soon realised that increasing greenhouse-gas emissions produced a greater and opposite effect.

CHARLES J JOLLY

BUXTON, DERBYSHIRE

Take a gamble

Sir: If supercasinos are so good for regeneration, why not Baghdad?

DAVID RIDGE

LONDON N19