The US has a lot to say
about human rights – except
when it comes to itself
The lady laird who
would have sparred
with Eck over the teacups
Scotland and Catalonia
The differences are increasingly apparent, argues Jim Scott
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Stones on Iona
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
The Cafe
The Cafe is our readers’ forum. Send your contribution to islay@scottishreview.net
The lady laird who
would have sparred
with Eck over the teacups
Marian Pallister
Author of ‘Yesterday Was Summer – The Marion Campbell Story’ (with an appreciation of her work by David Adams McGilp)
Whereas I agree with Katie Grant (15 May) that literacy skills are somewhat lacking among students nowadays, I wonder if she has heard of the efforts of the Royal Literary Fund?
For over a decade the RLF has funded writers to be resident in further and higher education institutions of many kinds for the express purpose of helping to improve standards of literacy. I have myself held two of these posts and worked with students from a variety of disciplines. It is rewarding work for which the RLF provides excellent guides and hand-outs. I probably improved my own literacy skills on the job.
Those most in need of help were the many foreign students, including Chinese, Arab, and Malaysian, and also those who had left school early without formal qualifications, returning to study as mature students. Others were surprisingly good, considering the amount of time they need to spend on IT skills and ‘placements’.
Many of those deemed less literate are studying practical subjects, for which they nevertheless have to write numerous essays. The emphasis on essay-writing for all subjects is, to my mind, a mistake. I was at the dentist the other day and was thinking that I didn’t mind in the least if he perhaps mixed up his apostrophes, as long as he knew about teeth and could dexterously deal with them. Nurses too, have to learn to deal with sophisticated equipment of all kinds, and to record everything accurately on computers. Again, punctuation isn’t of the essence, especially in stressed and overworked conditions, say taking out stitches or giving injections. (Although in calculating and measuring medicines, good numeracy is essential.)
Of course scientific writing needs to be clear, but tuition in this is available, and which students usually put themselves through online. But when they are often working in the evening and at weekends to support themselves, and, in the case of many mature students, their families as well, they may tend to skip this voluntary exercise in self-education.
Those of us who were educated in another era before computers, who learned to read and write as the basic tools of learning, should realise that this is no longer the case. The computer, the internet and IT skills have now replaced old-fashioned reading and writing as basic requirements for any form of further education. Nowadays, skimming is what children learn to do for ‘close-reading’ in school exams.
Surely we need complementary skills in society and not everyone has left-brain verbal facility. And does our society value literacy skills? Why did the RLF fund the writers in universities? To help the students certainly, but fundamentally also to help struggling writers, who cannot make a living however elegant their sentence structure.
Tessa Ransford
Surely the answer to David Mackenzie (29 May) is simple. If NATO wants Trident, then base it in one of the other NATO countries, say Germany, or Denmark, or God forbid, the south of England. It doesn’t have to be here. All you have to do is persuade these countries that if they want to be members of NATO, then they must have within their geographical boundaries a fleet of nuclear-armed submarines built and maintained by the British taxpayer and controlled by the Pentagon.
If that can happen, then I suppose that we would have to accept it, but if it can’t happen, then why should we be the odd one out? Personally I can’t see the need for further discussion on this matter. Trident will be going. Somewhere. I care not where.
Dougie Don
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