Children need unbiased facts

IT is very unfortunate that the Government is encouraging state-oriented schools to be taken out of local authority control and run by state interest.

True education is about giving children objective information and teaching them how to make independent, objective conclusions. It is not about allowing biased bodies to teach their own points of view. It is of course important to inform children about the belief of the major religions, but they should be encouraged to form their own independent conclusions from unbiased facts.

Cheap shots

From: Brian H Sheridan, Redmires Road, Sheffield.

IT ill-behoves Ron Willis to 
take cheap shots at the remains 
of Barnsley Main Colliery 
from his adopted Australia (Yorkshire Post, April 25). The “gaping” individual he sneers at in the nostalgic picture will probably never have the means to extricate himself from the wasteland that has been left him.

Mr Willis says he emigrated mainly because of our weather. For the record, he is welcome to the cultural and geographical desert – give or take a few 
coastal oases – he has chosen to inhabit.

Hard-earned

From: DM Adams, Huddersfield Road, Barnsley.

ONE could empathise with 
the wishes of Iain Duncan 
Smith regarding wealthy pensioners if it wasn’t for the appalling waste, extravagance and profligacy of this and previous governments.

Until common sense and prudence returns to our 
elected representatives no pensioner, wealthy or otherwise, will feel inclined to pay back or relinquish their hard-earned benefits.