The Coils family in Harlepool

The Hartlepool Mail this week illustrated yet again the state of educational arrangements in this country.

The family were denied their first choice secondary school for their daughter. In fact they were denied second and third choices as well. (They were required to rank their first three choices, but they actually gave a fourth choice.)

Their fourth choice school is five miles away from their home, on the other side of town, and needing two buses in each journey between home and school. Catchment areas seem to have gone, but been replaced by something worse!

They were advised that they could appeal, and have done so. If the appeal fails, they will consider transferring the guardianship of their daughter to her great aunt, who lives in the catchment area of their first choice school. This is a drastic step, but illustrates the idiocy which they feel they face.

The whole issue shows the the failure of Government and local authorities to get to grips with the problems of school failure and over-subscription at successful schools, with the consequent bureaucratic and secret rationing of places at more desirable schools. It is the product of ideology and a refusal to recognise the damage that it is doing to our educational system.

We must learn from other countries that a monolithic state education system ruled by Whitehall and managed by local authorities has failed, if indeed it ever succeeded.