I NOTE your front-page report on school discipline (“Bad behaviour soars as pupils no longer fear punishment”, The Herald, May 18). Teachers are there to teach, they are not “lion-tamers”. I come from a generation where to disobey or challenge a teacher was an act of folly that had both physical and psychological sequelae both immediately at school and later at home. Consequently, at least in my experience, teachers on the whole commanded authority if not respect. Most pupils could also determine positive benefits in future careers from learning, perhaps in this era of job insecurity this is less relevant.

Society has changed with the traditional family unit now playing less of a role as both parents, if involved, are expected daily to abandon their homes and cede family responsibility to a third party simply to allow them to work to earn enough to pay grossly inflated living expenses and participate in a consumer society based on conspicuous unnecessary consumption. How many working mothers would rather stay at home and look after their own children rather than working themselves simply to pay child-caring expenses? Just like a puppy, a child is for life not just Christmas.

The problem with bad behaviour in schools reflects the change in society and teachers should not be expected to tolerate it and neither should any other professional in their work environment. My solution is that teachers should ask one single question at the beginning of every class: “Who wants to learn today?” Those who don’t want to should be sent home where those responsible for their child’s behaviour can address the problem. That may provoke society to take a good look at itself.

David J Crawford,

85 Whittingehame Court, 1300 Great Western Road, Glasgow.

THE report on unacceptable behaviour in schools and your related editorial (“Schools need resources to fix behaviour”, The Herald, May 18th) pays scant regard to the self-evident fact that increasing numbers of parents lack the will or the capacity to raise their children to respect themselves and others. Recent crime figures revealed that a number of housebreaking offences have been committed by under-12s, some as young as eight, a further clear indication of parental failings.

Unless tuition in parenting from an early age is introduced, a bad situation will only worsen, with predictably negative consequences for too many of our youngsters and society at large.

Duncan Macintyre,

2 Fort Matilda Terrace, Greenock.

AS a former Scottish UCU President it was great to see Andrew Denholm mention Professor Sir Ian Diamond’s comments at the Scottish Parliament’s Education Committee about the problem Scottish students have in receiving entry to our universities (“‘Squeeze’ on Scottish university places”, The Herald, May 17). I have been saying this for quite a number of years now and I am very glad it is now being picked up.

To keep it simple, if we need 1,000 doctors we should at the very least train 1,000 doctors and not train si600 and say we will take doctors from other countries to fill the gap. It is quite right that some doctors will go abroad and some will come here from other countries but it is completely wrong for us to deliberately train fewer than we need. We have some of the oldest-established and finest medical schools in the world so it seems crazy that we cannot train enough medical students. This does not just apply to Scottish medical students but also to engineers, lawyers and so on. It is quite correct for the universities to take European, international and rUK students, but the vast majority of them leave Scotland within a year or so of gaining a qualification, so we must ensure enough Scottish students have the chance to go and study at university.

Gordon Watson,

3/2 145 Broomhill Drive, Glasgow.

THE Principal of Aberdeen University, Sir Ian Diamond has told a Holyrood committee that his admissions department is forced to reject applications from well-qualified Scots because of the SNP’s quota on places. It transpires that 2,816 Scots have been accepted to medical schools at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, St. Andrews and Dundee universities in the past five years. 13,896 suitably qualified Scots applicants had their applications rejected. This is another example of the myth of free tuition for Scots.

It is not only in medicine that Scots are missing out as a look at graduation lists of the aforementioned universities shows. In all the major subjects such as medicine, science and engineering the vast majority of graduates are from outwith Scotland and the EU. By perpetuating this false premise of free tuition the SNP is educating the rest of the world’s students at the expense of Scottish students and the future of the country. In the face of a chronic shortage of GPs, scientists and engineers in Scotland the SNP’s ideological obsession with free tuition is unaffordable, a betrayal Scottish students and totally irresponsible.

Donald Lewis,

Pine Cottage, Beech Hill, Gifford.

PAM Currie (Letters, May 18) dismisses some responses, those which were not entirely four-square behind the LGBT agenda, in the survey conducted by the charity Advance HE into the experiences of staff in Scotland’s Further Education colleges, the first of its kind, as “old-fashioned prejudice, plain and simple”.

Obviously, since these responses did not correspond to all that she demands that all of us support and believe then they could not possibly be an accurate reflection on these education professionals’ own lived workplace experience. One wonders whether she took the time and went to the trouble of looking up online “Equality in colleges in Scotland: results from the 2017 staff survey and focus groups”. But I doubt it.

Had she done so, would it have mattered to her that there are other identifiable groups who seem to suffer as much and more discrimination than her chosen favourites, the LGBT? She mentions bullying in school. Every report of genuine, serious research into this that I have ever heard of has put other groups ahead of these in the “being bullied” stakes –most importantly, and usually in first place, the poor. From this report, it would seem that the disabled and the over-60s are in a worse position than all the other identifiable groups.

Always proclaiming that you deserve special attention ahead of everybody else no matter what makes it even harder.

Hugh McLoughlin,

24 Russell Street, Mossend, Bellshill.