You reported that Oxfordshire teenagers from ethnic minorities scored much worse GCSE figures than their peers across the country.

Over 20 years ago in 1984, I was working at one of the London boroughs on a project looking at how a poor basic education affected the opportunity to obtain employment and to advance in employment with a view to seeing what could be done to alleviate the problem.

At that time the Greater London Council and the National Economic Development Council were in existence and they were a remarkable source of information on levels of achievement in education.

What is more to the point, this information was available by gender and race.

That was before the blessed Margaret destroyed both organisations and their libraries in acts of petulant vindictiveness.

The facts of the matter are that teenagers from ethnic minorities were scoring “much less” in examinations than their peers a long time before 1984 and obviously long before the problem was reported in the Oxford Mail.

Many reasons have been proposed as to why this situation exists, but little has been done to change the situation.

It was and is a national disgrace, but what is even more of a disgrace is that neither of the major political parties in power has done anything about it and it looks as though they don't intend to.

Brian M Leahy, Hanney Road, Steventon, Abingdon