One can hardly listen to a British news bulletin – or a range of other programmes – for 10 minutes without some tedious and fruitless discussion about education arising, be it with respect to five-year-olds (if not the younger), mature students or any level in between – and we still have the habitual debate on the validity or otherwise of the summer examination results to look forward to.

Yet, when I tune in to state-run or independent continental stations, this issue seldom crops up, as was the case here in my youth.

Why should that be, I wonder?

DAVID DIMENT Riverside Court Oxford