PISA figures

John Munro (“Literacy and numeracy are outdated criteria when it comes to a good education”, Letters, 7 February)

joins the growing chorus of SNP apologists in calling for the ditching of the PISA figures.

This would certainly demonstrate consistency following upon the discarding of reports from other international organisations such as the Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study and the Trends in International

Maths and Science Survey and more recently the Scottish Government’s own Scottish Study in Literacy and Numeracy. There was a common thread in all of these reports. They informed us that Scottish education was getting worse, not better. Could that be the reason for wishing to abandon them?

It is not only in relation to

education that the SNP shows a willingness to suppress comment on their performance when it is shown to be declining. The GERS reports, according to Alex Salmond, were the authoritative publication on Scotland’s finances – that was when they were relatively healthy. Now that they show a substantial deficit Derek Mackay announces as his last act that they are a “misrepresentation” and was about to produce his own “alternative” figures (The Scotsman, 6 February)! We await the no doubt rosier figures from his successor.

Finally, Mr Munro praises the SNP for focusing on wellbeing rather than economic growth – which is not a surprise given their record on the economy and the fact that they are having a tough time trying to convince the Scottish electorate that they can improve it.

Unfortunately for Mr Munro, a newly-published Scottish Trends report caused “alarm as Scotland slides down the global well-being rankings” (The Scotsman, January 22).

Time for discrediting operation and for some more alternative facts, I suspect.

COLIN HAMILTON Braid Hills Avenue, Edinburgh