It is hoped the release of the ACT Government's discussion paper regarding raising the school leaving age and re-engaging so-called disengaged youth (''Outcry at plan to lift school leaving age'', August 19, p3) is accompanied by the research Education Minister Andrew Barr states supports it because our research, and experience, shows a different picture to that which is painted.
The Institute of Applied Technology in the United Arab Emirates is the largest vocational education secondary school system of its kind in the world and caters for both high achieving senior students as well as those who are ''disengaged''.
The graduation rate is in excess of 95percent of students entering the school at Year 10, and while many are gaining employment on graduation it is primarily because of the personal attributes they gain through their studies, not the subjects themselves.
In fact very few are gaining employment in the vocational areas in which they study. Moreover, while there is evidence that some who do not complete Year 12 do find difficulty in gaining employment it has far less to do with their level of education and more to do with their motivation and confidence. Those who do not complete Year 12 but go on to become successful business people do so in spite of whatever schooling they receive.
And this is not just our experience but a world-wide phenomenon.
In other words, many feel that to continue at school would be to hinder their opportunities at life and success and therefore leave to forge their own way in the world.
There are many examples of successful people who never completed Year 12, so to imply that being forced to remain at school is to enhance their prospects is quite wrong.
I would be happy to be exposed to the research which shows that world-wide experience is wrong, but having been involved in this sector for many years I am wary of accepting at face value bold statements such as those made recently by the Minister. Attempting to re-engage disengaged youth may in fact cause more damage than good.
Dr Phillip Rutherford, deputy director - operations, Institute of Applied Technology, Dubai, UAE
Untouchable issue
Jon Stanhope denies that he has grown arrogant in government, but a comment in ''Dr Jon v The Boy Avenger'' (August 16, pB5) demolishes that assertion.
Regarding school closures, he says, ''I regret that I had to take the decisions but they were decisions no other chief minister or government was ever prepared to take''.
Really?
Has he genuinely forgotten the attempts of the Alliance Government to close schools? And has he also forgotten that government's attempts were resisted in the Legislative Assembly by the Labor Party? And that the Alliance Government eventually fell over that very issue, courtesy of the votes of Labor MLAs?
No, I don't believe he has.
But I do believe a certain arrogance allows him to make such false assertions in the confidence the truth has been forgotten by most, or that few are prepared to contradict him.
It is true that the recent school closure crisis was not of Jon Stanhope's making. But it was absolutely of ACT Labor's making. It was Labor that made school closures the untouchable issue for a whole generation of ACT politicians.
Its stentorian opposition to school closures during the first 15 years of self-government, in the face of a clear economic imperative to do so, put off the day of reckoning.
It is no small irony that it was left to the present Chief Minister to defuse the bomb his own party had set years before.
Senator Gary Humphries, ACT Minister for Education 1989-91
Respect needed
Congratulations on informing the community (the funder and ultimate stakeholder in the criminal justice system) on appeals from the Magistrates Court (''Accused ducking 'rough' justice'', August 16, p1).
The High Court ruled about 30 years ago a jury verdict should not have a provisional quality about it.
The community is entitled to know that, increasingly, magistrates findings now have that quality. The trend began in the 1990s, which saw a significant increase in appeals to the Supreme Court.
In the 70s/80s (during some of which I was with the police legal branch), appeals were few (most involving the breathalyser legislation).
Magistrates were respected by the legal community (including the police), and by the wider community.
The ''provisional'' taint erodes the confidence of the community in the criminal justice process, and has produced a cohort of criminal law practitioners with little respect for magistrates.
Why is the discretionary judgment of a judge superior to that of a magistrate when determining sentencing and bail appeals?
The community heavily invests, financially and psychologically, in both Courts, and is entitled to expect the discretionary decisions of all judicial office holders are respected on appeal.
Unless being found insupportable within the narrow band allowed by the principle applicable to an appeal from a discretionary decision.
Christopher Ryan, Watson
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