Dear Editor,

I am pleased to hear that Minister Thwaites has come out strongly against the habit of screening students for entry into publicly funded schools. I only hope that he has the backbone of an Edwin Allen to take on the real perpetrators of the backward practice at traditional high schools, where this had been the modus operandi.

For too long we have allowed some schools and teachers to be insulated from the real problems in the system. The Grade Six Achievement Test already screens, yet at the sixth form level some of them will require that applicants get distinctions in the subjects they wish to pursue even when the students attended the same school.

We need to rationalise how students are admitted into our schools at all levels. All our schools can produce world-class academics and athletes. There is no need to move them all over the place. We cannot afford to pay teachers who only want to teach bright students and coach talented athletes.

Sports must have some educational value for every student if it is to be funded by the State. The talented ones will get funding from private sector companies. We need to send the message that students with proper parental or other support who attend classes regularly and spend time afterwards having the lessons reinforced by applying what they learn in practice are successful.

Teachers who only want to teach brilliant students are being lazy. When a child lives within walking distance of a school, and is refused admission to the school after getting over 60 per cent in GSAT in both math and English, we should conclude that it is the school, not the child, who is deficient.

R Howard Thompson

howardthompson507@yahoo.com