I reply to your article: Cash plan for gipsies in schools (December 10, 1998).

Although the facts regarding the bid put into the Department for Education and Employment are correct, I am writing strongly to object to the article on the following points: No schools are "forced" to take traveller children. Not only is the statement incorrect - the use of the words are inflammatory and, I presume, were used to help feed prejudice and discrimination among the reading population of the BEN. Traveller children are accepted on roll at a school in the same way any child is accepted - depending on numbers.

By stating that schools are "forced" - you do the schools an injustice, as the majority welcome traveller children as any other child who requires a place.

The grant applies for course work with all the different traveller cultures, not just the gipsy culture. If the work was to be done with children from, for example, India or Pakistan, would you have written "Schools forced to take Pakistani Children"? I am sure you would not.

Why, then, do you feel you have the right to show prejudice, discrimination and 'dislike' for this ethnic minority?

Please address your prejudices and write articles that are factually true and morally correct.

Kathleen Cresswell

Clifton Drive, Blackrod

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