APPENDIX 1
12. Letter from Professor Ron Glatter
to the Committee Specialist
At the end of the session on 15 January, the
Chair indicated that the Committee would welcome any further thoughts
that occurred to witnesses later. I would like to add a gloss
to one of the replies I gave.
I was asked for my reaction to the fact that
the government is now prioritising the school improvement objective
of the diversity policy over the extension of choice objective.
My response may not have sufficiently brought out the point that,
irrespective of the government's intentions, the range of secondary
school provision that exists in a local area is of interest and
importance to the families living there. The way this provision
is changed by the policy on diversity and on specialist schools
will therefore also be important to them. That is why my view,
put forward in my memorandum of evidence and the supporting paper,
that we need to look more closely at how diversity and choice
interact with one another, and also at how families perceive the
new provision, seems to me unaffected by the apparent downgrading
of the choice objective in the diversity policy.
I hope this extension of my oral reply is helpful.
17 January 2003
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