Lowering standards not good for students

Alex Salmond recently attacked his alma mater, St Andrews University, on BBC’s ‘Question Time’, for not “educating people across the social spectrum”.

Defending the university, a spokesperson said: “We lower our entry requirements for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, use tailored support programmes and first-year mentoring schemes and offer a very broad range of bursary and scholarship assistance.”

Alex and the university spokesperson are actually singing from the same hymn sheet.

Unfortunately, they believe that the way to help underprivileged pupils and students is to lower standards for them.

I agree with only one part of the university policy dealing with such students i.e. “the very broad range of bursary and scholarship assistance.”

The rest is rubbish. The only way we can help the disadvantaged is to raise standards in our schools and universities, not lower them.

The Scottish schools and further education system until the changes introduced since World War II was far superior to what we have now. The poorest pupils attending schools in the most deprived areas of our cities could still be guaranteed a solid grounding at primary school level, with the opportunity to go on to senior secondary school and university for those with the abilities to cope.

Even if they went on to junior secondary schools, these gave excellent preparation for trades and clerical occupations, while still continuing with the pupils’ general education.

The old Scottish education system was sound and had been refined over many years to make it one of the best in the world. Now it has been destroyed and no amount of social engineering or lowering standards for underprivileged students will compensate.

The disadvantaged are far more disadvantaged and the gap between rich and poor is far wider today than it was in my parents’ - and my - time. The cause is not far to seek – the constant tinkering with our education system in the name of social equality.

It was far easier before the left-wing reforms of the latter half of the 20th Century for a youngster from a poor background to go to university, gain a good degree and become a member of the professional classes. George K McMillan Mount Tabor Avenue Perth