MRS ANNIE Settle tells me in her letter, December 14, "that the behaviour of any children out of school, or in for that matter, is not the responsibility of the teachers".

Oh! come on now, nobody can really believe that. Education is to prepare children for adult life. To teach them all they need to know, to be decent law-abiding citizens. It isn't just a matter of academic achievements.

It's also about building the person, the character, the moral fibre.

I sympathise with teachers, who have had their hands tied by do-gooders for too long, but they can try all they like, work their fingers to the bone, get pensioned off because they're stressed out, but, as in any other job, it's the finished product that matters. If they turn out young people who don't know how to behave, then they have failed.

It's no use blaming parents, even if parents are to blame, because there are too many parents who don't know how to behave themselves. Products of these very same schools. How can these people teach their children things they know nothing about - things they themselves were never taught at school?

Brian Derbyshire

Ribchester Grove, Bolton

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.