YOUR report (“Quality state schools can phase out private rivals”, April 19) highlights the attainment gap in education. Poverty and educational inequality have co-existed for a long time. I started teaching at the age of 19 in a Fife mining community, where deprivation stared me in the face. I came across one wee girl whose attendance at school was very erratic. When I questioned her, she tearfully explained that she could not manage to school every day because she had to share a pair of shoes with her brother. The “shoes” were a pair of leaky welly boots. My sister came to the rescue with some second-hand shoes, which led to an immediate improvement in attendance and attainment.
Letters: Why retired teachers could help close the attainment gap
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I MUST challenge a statement made by Andrew Dunlop in his piece “Nicola Sturgeon is not the right leader for Scotland’s vital post-Covid recovery” (The Herald, April 13). Baron Dunlop, Conservative member of the House of Lords, states that Nicola Sturgeon has “been no more successful than other UK leaders in mitigating the pandemic’s effects”. However, the overall figures for infection per 100,000 people in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are, respectively, 6785, 6667, 4066 and 6242, showing that Scotland’s rate of infection has been considerably below that of the other nations. Similarly, the figures for overall Covid deaths (deaths within 28 days of a positive test) per 100,000 people, in the same order, are 199, 175, 139 and 111.
ANNE Wimberley (Letters, April 5) contends that the big difference between Scotland, and New Zealand, Finland and Sweden, is that the leaders and political parties in these countries actually care about their citizens and make policies to improve life for everyone . I would contend that the big difference between these countries and Scotland is that they are independent and Scotland is not. However, even with one arm tied behind its back, and through years of Tory austerity, the SNP Government has delivered for its citizens, from baby boxes to free university education, from no charge for medical prescriptions to free personal and nursing care to all who require it, regardless of age.
ON reading a flier promoting the local SNP candidate I note it indicated the intention to rejoin the EU after independence as the best way to recover from the pandemic and set Scotland on the road to economic recovery. The SNP has been incapable of recognising the extraordinary success of the UK Government in its vaccine procurement to the benefit of the entire country, and yet fails to acknowledge that had we been reliant on the EU for purchasing the vaccines we would be in much greater continuing health crisis than we currently face. As a former Remainer in the Brexit vote of 2016 I am certainly no longer inclined to vote in this way given the appalling behaviour of several of Europe’s leaders over their self-induced vaccine fiasco. I wonder how many other previous Scottish Remainers would be changing their vote if this were to be repeated.
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