ALTHOUGH Peter Smith (Feb 2) has largely failed to address my comments on the English Baccalaureate, let me respond to the points that he makes.

The increase in the numbers going to university is of course the result of successive governments expanding both the size and the number of these institutions, including many in unlikely towns with high student drop-out rates, courses of dubious academic value and poor records of suitable graduate employment. With the present need for financial retrenchment the number is unlikely to increase further, and some of the weaker institutions may even have to close.

The local authorities that retain wholly or partially selective systems regularly dominate the top places for overall academic results. A prime example is Buckinghamshire, which has not only kept all its excellent grammar schools (now catering for over 40 per cent of its children), but has also seen most of its secondary moderns develop sixth forms and style themselves comprehensives. The latter are sometimes preferred by parents to grammar schools, and have records of achievement that put many schools in wholly comprehensive areas to shame.

I do agree with Mr Smith that comprehensivisation was often cut-price and chaotic; the money to do better was never available, but the Wilson government, spearheaded by public school socialist Anthony Crosland, demanded immediate revolution. Those authorities that successfully held out and evolved the previous arrangements did far better and with less expense.

I also agree that all children deserve an appropriate education. The point is that the brightest children, from whatever background, deserve an education that enables them to compete successfully for places at our best universities, which are only too happy to admit them, provided they have been properly prepared at school. That is what Mr Gove is now trying to achieve by laying greater stress on academic education for those who can benefit. If he succeeds it may be that the sad decline in our recent performance in international league tables will be arrested.

CHARLES LINFIELD

Bakers Road

Wroughton