SIR: Tory election promises include the re-establishment of grammar schools and increased opportunity for other schools to select pupils. Previously when selection governed entry to secondary education three quarters of the nation's children failed the entry requirements and were relegated to much more poorly resourced secondary modern schools.

What parents will want to know from Tory candidates when they canvass votes is what justification, excuse or sympathy, will they be proposing to offer to those parents whose children will be denied entry to their local school because it has given preference to children it considers to be of higher academic ability from areas outside the locality. Those parents will be right to complain that schools choosing pupils is the complete opposite of parental choice.

Rather than a few favoured schools, parents and children want all schools equally resourced and supported so that each is able to offer the full range of educational opportunity to all children

R Evans

Crescent Avenue, Over Hulton

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