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Ken Clark
Thursday 23 January 1997 00:02 GMT
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Judith Judd (Education + , "The Class Ceiling", 12 January) ) has got it wrong. What determines whether children get to university is whether their parents speak standard English (regional accents don't matter), answer their questions. and read books. If so, the children are likely to succeed at school.

Children spend more time at home than they do in school. If most of that time is spent in what is, in fact, individual tuition they will learn more than they ever do in school. Pushy parents with "middle-class" know- how often do outflank "working-class" parents; the fault lies in the home environment (and - dare I say it - in our genes).

Read Jencks and After Plowden - and be grateful that a lot of "working- class" kids are much nicer human beings than some of the clever devils sitting in boardrooms, the Stock Exchange and the House of Commons.

Ken Clark

Bedford

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