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Letters
Maidstone Adscene
3 Broadway Centre
Maidstone
ME16 8PS
25 March 2003
Dear Sir,
I am not surprised that the writer of the letter in your recent
edition about secondary education in Kent preferred to remain
anonymous, as the piece is based on many sources of evidence which
do not stand up to examination. The fact remains that there is
a very strong body of opinion throughout Kent in favour of retaining
the current diverse mix of secondary schools. Support
Kent Schools, with its thousands of members, is happy to
be at the vanguard of that movement.
Your correspondent continues to condemn grammar schools and suggests
that transfer to a comprehensive structure would bring a system
with high levels of expectation for every pupil. Not even the
Government believes that of the comprehensive system! It is, of
course, the education system currently offered to 90% of the pupil
population in the country and, bearing in mind that the vast majority
of children are educated within comprehensives, the following
comments from the Government’s recently published “14-19
Opportunity and Excellence” document are instructive:-
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“Too many young people are not achieving
as well as they should.” |
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“Despite steady progress over recent years only
51% of pupils achieve five good GCSEs and just over 5% achieve no
GCSEs at all.” |
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“In a league table of participation rates for
17 year olds, we are equal 25th our of 29 OECD countries, just ahead
of Greece, Mexico and Turkey.” |
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“One in four 16-18 year olds had dropped out
of education and training at the end of 2000, significantly above
the OECD and European Union averages.” |
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“Behind these statistics lie some harsh realities.
Despite top quality provision in many schools too many people have
been turned off by their experience of secondary education.” |
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Do we really want a system imposed in Kent that has not proved
universally successful elsewhere? I put it to you that the vast
majority of people in Kent would say “No”. Like Support
Kent Schools, they would like to see education funding
spent on improving the poorly performing schools, rather than
on an unnecessary reorganisation. Such improvement, combined with
increasing co-operation and collaboration, both formal and informal,
between selective and non-selective schools will take education
standards forward in the County.
Yours sincerely,
R. T. Avery
for Eric Hammond, Chairman, Support Kent Schools
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