Re The Big Read on which families of children with autism shared their experiences of mainstream education (“Parents of autistic children turn on Scot Gov’s policy of inclusion”, March 23): I was especially saddened by the words of Joanne Lamond, parent and campaigner, when she said: “Extremist rhetoric is growing particularly online, where ASN children are called ‘ineducable’ or claims are made like "Does it really matter if an autistic child gets an education? It’s terrifying. We’re going backwards.”

As someone who has worked in the Special Needs Education sector for many years I can testify that her words are correct and she is stating a fact: we are going backwards. In 1973 the Scottish Education Department published the report of the Melville Committee into the training of staff for centres for people with learning disabilities as, up till that time, IQs were used as a measurement to determine a child’s educational placement. Those with an IQ over 75 could attend mainstream school, 50-74 got to attend a Special School whilst those with a 30-50 IQ attended a Junior Occupation Centre and for those with below 30 IQ there was no statutory provision.

A key paragraph in the Melville report clearly stated: “If by education we understand an individually orientated process designed to enable each person to realise their potentialities to the greatest extent possible, without any presumptions as to what the outcome might be, it is no longer appropriate to describe any person as ineducable. In these terms the most profoundly handicapped has as much right to education as the most able.” The following year the Education of Mentally Handicapped Children (Scotland) Act was passed and schooling became available for every child between the ages of five and sixteen.

But then in 1981 came another blip in the system in the form of the Warnock Report with its emphasis on inclusion. Its three key areas to be fixed in order to include everyone with a disability of any kind in mainstream school were Access, Curriculum and Environment. We cynics working in Special Education at the time could see how this might work for hearing, visual or physical difficulties with the adjustments that could be made to improve physical access along with the provision of specialist equipment and resources. But Curriculum? No. We envisaged the lives of children with a non-apparent learning difficulty being made miserable by a regime and lesson content they could not understand along with their most likely being taunted by fellow pupils for being so “dumb or stupid”.

Unfortunately, we were right in our thinking way back then as is testified by the views of parents featured in the Big Read. We have gone backwards in many ways in the ASN sector of education and sadly this would appear to be because pupils are being required to fit into the boxes created by what are deemed to be politically correct policies. We must put a stop to this backward-sliding, regain our balance and move forward again with our pupils showing us the way.

Gail Keating, Bonnyrigg.

Read more letters

Work experience of Scottish ministers

Your letters pages are frequently filled with ad hominem attacks against Scottish Government ministers, but Dennis Grattan's letter (March 23) reaches a new low in uninformed personal insult for suggesting that they have only worked in Scottish politics. The following information took me less than 10 minutes to collate:

After graduating from Edinburgh University and embarking on his career in politics, First Minister John Swinney was a research officer for the Scottish Coal Project, and was a strategic planning principal with Scottish Amicable from 1992 to 1997.

Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes completed degrees at Edinburgh and Cambridge Universities, becoming a chartered accountant for Barclays in London before entering politics.

Shona Robison worked in local government before becoming an MSP. She is now Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government.

Jenny Gilruth was a head of department in secondary education as well as a national qualifications development officer before becoming an MSP. She is now Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills.

Before becoming a politician, Angus Robertson was a foreign and diplomatic correspondent in Central Europe for the BBC. In addition, Mr Robertson is a fluent German speaker – surely this is an excellent fit for his current job as Cabinet Secretary for External Affairs?

David Patrick, Edinburgh.

We must face facts on defence
Three weeks ago US Vice-President, J D Vance was heavily criticised with his ignorant remark that an American stake in the Ukraine economy would be a better security than 20,000 troops from “some random country which hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years”.Whether this was aimed at the UK and France, the two countries which would lead such a coalition, was unclear, especially after he was reminded, subsequently, how we had fought side by side in American imperial wars, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now the US Envoy Steve Witkoff has put more meat on the bones of his administration’s real attitude to the UK Government’s suggestion, describing Sir Keir’s proposal of a “Coalition of the Willing” as mere posture by a Prime Minister who is under pressure to strike a Churchillian pose. Leaving aside our criticism that the man who has been leading the ceasefire negotiations with President Putin cannot name the regions or oblasts of Ukraine that Russia currently occupies, this still leads to an uncomfortable truth.

The UK armed services are dangerously depleted. John Healey, the Defence Secretary, has remarked that years of underfunding have left the army hollowed out. Certainly, with 75,000 troops, we would struggle to generate one division. It is the size it was before the Napoleonic War, the same as Romania’s. It must be increased. Russia has 1.3 million troops.

Sir Keir is making promises to Kyiv the UK cannot meet. President Trump will not agree a backstop and President Putin will not countenance Europe’s troops in Ukraine. The time has come, with the Strategic Defence Review, to reconfigure British defences and rethink strategic assumptions. We must order RAF typhoons not F35Bs and cancel provocative Royal Navy tours to the South China Sea designed to give the illusion of global reach. Above all let’s stop talking meaninglessly of “A Coalition of the Willing" to strike a patriotic pose for blatant electoral purposes.
John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife.

Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism

Every right-thinking person will reject anti-Semitism wherever it raises its ugly head. Like racism, it feeds on cruelty and lies. But it is not an accusation that should be used rashly. However, Anat Kraskin in her open letter ("I'm witnessing a rise in antisemitism at Glasgow University", heraldscotland, March 23) confuses anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

Zionism is a political ideology defined as "settler colonial" by such eminent Jewish and expressly anti-Zionist scholars as Ilan Pappe and Avi Shlaim, both of whom once fought for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). In the words of the Australian historian Patrick Wolfe, settler colonialism “destroys to replace”. To equate this with Judaism with its core values of altruism, truth, justice and peace is a travesty whose consequences have brought about the genocide we are now witnessing in Gaza, resulting in displacement, ruination and death.

Anat Kaskin refers to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Seven of its 11 clauses allude to the state of Israel. Paragraph seven posits as antisemitic "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination", for example by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour. As critics have pointed out this example (among others) can be used to label as antisemitic documentation or assertions that Israel’s founding involved dispossessing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

More than 100 Israeli and international civil society organisations have asked the United Nations to reject such IHRA definitions because of their likely misuse in protecting Israel from legitimate criticism. Signatories include Israel’s largest human rights group, B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union among others. The definition has also been criticised by Ken Stern who, as the American Jewish Committee’s antisemitism expert, led its drafting two decades ago. In 2023, Mr Stern successfully urged the American Bar Association against adopting the definition because it has been used as “a blunt instrument to label anyone an anti-Semite”. Ms Kaskin’s pillorying of Glasgow University’s rector for similarly criticising the document is misplaced and lacks context.

Ms Kaskin rightly states that “a university should be a space for diverse opinions, but it cannot be a space for threats, intimidation, and incitement to violence”. Remarkably, she fails to mention Israeli violence against Palestinians: the thousands of deaths; the use of starvation and rape as a weapon; the destruction of hospitals; the terrorising and expulsion of Palestinians on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Surely all this, in flagrant disregard of international law, deserves her compassion?

The Italian author, Ignazio Silone, once wrote that “we cannot evade to be aware of what is happening”. Of course, antisemitism is a bacillus affecting our society. But extending its parameters to justify cruelty and oppression is equally caustic. Besides being a space for diverse opinions, a university is also a place of learning, which no doubt explains the level of student engagement with our Palestinian brothers and sisters.

Charlie Lych, Aberdeen.

Stuart Cosgrove, left, and Tam CowanStuart Cosgrove, left, and Tam Cowan (Image: BBC)

Why not speak proper English?

George Morton (Letters, March 23) rightly points out the current poor standard of English spoken. This is certainly not helped by the crop of BBC Radio Scotland presenters including Len Pennie, Michelle McManus, Tam Cowan and Stuart Cosgrove who seem to revel in talking about what “yous are gonnae dae the morra” and other similar phrases.

I recall Nicola Sturgeon resorting to similar speech, presumably to sound more Scottish (and less English?). They could all quite easily speak good English with a Scottish accent. What chance do our schools have with these as examples?

Duncan Sooman, Milngavie.