Lessons to be learned

LOOKING through last week's Mercury, and talking to harassed parents of what are apparently called Year six children, it seems that the yearly education lottery is well under way.

This weekend we have the grammar schools allowing pupils to undergo their independent entrance tests, so that they can keep up pupil numbers, in spite of the fact that many of the applicants have just failed a countywide test, which is supposed to identify those for whom a selective education is most suited.

Other parents have been discovering/re-discovering their deep-founded religious conviction (or organised superstitions as anyone with an iota of common sense would call them) in an effort to get their offspring into what is euphemistically called a comprehensive school.

Meanwhile parents from Aylesham who have chosen to exercise the parental choice (which politicians of all parties claims they have), by choosing a secondary school which has branded itself Technology, find there are no places for their children.

(Although it really has stretched ones credulity when the parents cite transport difficulties as the reason for their choice, the alternative choice of school being equidistant from the Aylesham, straight down the A2 rather than cross-country, and already providing a daily bus service from Aylesham).

Surely there must be a better way.

Firstly if we are going to have selective education let's just use the Kent test. If it means falling rolls at the grammar schools then so be it. Perhaps they will then get back to being the centres of academic excellence that the economy needs, dropping the joke subjects like psychology and sports sciences.

This may mean that Pfizers will begin to be able to find staff locally rather than having to trawl the world to find suitably qualified workers.

Once places have been offered and accepted at the grammar schools, the other secondary places should be offered solely in terms of proximity to place of residence.

An east Kent reader - name and address supplied.