Sir - I read with interest the article regarding schools in Oxfordshire and comments made by education chief Janet Tomlinson. This is a subject for which I feel some passion, owing to my current position as a trainee teacher in the region.

I have been exposed to the realities of state education from the perspective of a teacher, and it has been quite illuminating. Schools can only provide opportunities to learn; they cannot force a child to acquire knowledge. Yet no one, parents, the Government and figures such as Janet Tomlinson dare speak of the other bodies in the process: the parents and children. Many parents seem to operate under the assumption that their children are owed an education, and that they have the school on the back foot, forgetting their own responsibilities.

Many pupils have the most appalling attitude towards their education, crying out 'I don't get it!' the moment they are asked to think, scandalised when they are asked to write more than a sentence.

Teachers have a pathetic arsenal of disciplinary methods to deal with problem students. Standards may have declined; but to blame schools wholly is a huge oversimplification of the problem.

Adam Foster, Oxford