I HAVE sometimes wondered whether being a student should be a protected characteristic, a belief intensified by Rosemary Goring's article ("Universities should teach students how to behave for sake of neighbours", The Herald, September 28) because had she used the word "migrants","refugees" or some ethnic or religious group for every occurrence of "students" I suspect it would have been severely criticised.

Because the country has, for better or worse, decided that 50% of school leavers should go on to university, that means by definition that there will be many more students than in previous decades. It is unthinkable that there could be a return to the days when just one in seven school leavers proceeded to higher education as it was 50 years ago. What is unfortunate is that, rather than being provided with the resources to accommodate this increase, universities have been left to make bricks without straw.

As for the housing issues, there appears to be an assumption that a dwelling which ceases to be a student residence will become available to the likes of local families on the housing list, or low-paid workers. The reality is that, should the house be in a desirable area, it is far more likely to be purchased as a second residence, and occupied at most six weeks of the year plus the odd weekend.

Given that student flats are occupied for at least 30 weeks of the year, very often 40 or 50, which use is more likely to boost the local economy? Besides, landlords know how to get round any restriction on Houses in Multiple Occupancy (HMOs); they simply divide the properties into two-bedroomed dwellings or restrict the number of tenants in each house to two, thus falling outwith the definition of HMO, and ironically resulting in even more houses being occupied by students.

While students as an "out group" may be perceived as a convenient scapegoat for all the modern ills foisted upon our town centres, it is perverse to blame them for the closure of shops and other facilities. In fact the opposite is more likely to be the case, despite Ms Goring's sneering at students' chosen cooking equipment. "Pereat diabolus quivis antiburschius" (roughly translated as "Down with student-haters") says the Gaudeamus, and if this article is anything to go by, the "antiburschii" are alive and well.

Finally, why on earth did you use a photograph of St Andrews students resplendent in their red gowns on the pier to illustrate an article about UK-wide student misbehaviour? I was unaware that the traditional pier-walk was so reprehensible.

Jane Ann Liston, Liberal Democrat councillor for St Andrews & Strathkinness, St Andrews.

The problem with our secondaries

I LARGELY agree with the analysis by Michael Sheridan (Letters, September 29) on the recent views on Scottish education published in The Herald from Prof Brian Boyd (Letters, September 27) and also recently in the article from the Secret Teacher (September 25). The fact that the views are anonymous speaks volumes about Scottish education.

The issues highlighted seem to include the fact that when the Curriculum for Excellence was first published everyone appears to have waited for a firm series of national syllabi but which never came in the usable and stable form teachers were familiar with.

Additionally, I feel that the culture within our secondary sector has never been comfortable since the historic transition to comprehensive secondary schools in the late 1960s. The result has been that vigorous streaming within many secondaries means it is almost possible in some schools to identify the characteristics of senior and junior secondaries co-existing in the one building.

I feel the driver has largely been a national obsession with university entrance statistics. This is hardly surprising since the world of Scottish education could not be described as an inclusive representation of society as a whole. I consider it to be a fact that our established secondary school system only suits the profile of a certain type of pupil personality, upbringing and temperament. I expect that successful pupils are often those who divorce themselves emotionally from subjects such that there is no question of not doing well because they do not like or are disinterested in a subject.

For pupils who do not prove to have Higher Grade potential under the Hayward Report proposals, I expect that some schools will struggle to provide what might even be viewed by our universities as the educational equivalent of palliative care. While our secondary schools remain subject-based it is difficult to imagine how provision will undergo a significant reformation.

Bill Brown, Milngavie.

Read more: St Andrews, Glasgow and Edinburgh unis should teach students to behave

Arboreal vandalism

WHILE on Hadrian's Wall the illegal felling of an ancient sycamore is lamented ("Teenage boy arrested after famous Sycamore Gap Tree ‘deliberately’ felled", The Herald, September 29), another act of arboreal vandalism closer to home has taken place.

The Sauchiehall Street pedestrian precinct is a dreich shadowland of department stores seeking new meaning, or philanthropic new owners with vision.

One redeeming feature of the block between Hope Street and Cambridge Street was the parallel rows of trees which nodded to the street name (sauchie = willow); these had arrived with the millennium, but were being cut down ("Dozens of trees felled in Glasgow as £115m revamp gets under way", The Herald, September 30). The workman I challenged said the trees would be replaced: why? They were in a Low Emission Zone, where trees are needed to counteract the CO2 fumes. These were exotic trees: Turkish variant hazelnut trees with nut clusters like sea urchins.

Worse yet is proposed for central Glasgow, which if enacted will add to noise and pollution. Why demolish the Buchanan Galleries, rather than create new uses for the spaces? Why build a 17-storey block east of the Glasgow Film Theatre? Garnethill is an urban village: a delightful, peaceful multi-cultural quarter which in cities like Paris's Marais, Amsterdam's Jordaan or Hamburg's Altona would be cherished and preserved.

Graeme Orr, Neilston.

Back to Victorian values

RE Ian McConnell's article on Ayr's Station Hotel ("Despite this devastating blaze, Ayr’s Station Hotel must be saved", The Herald, September 27): the hotel certainly felt very Victorian when I stayed in it during the three-day week 50 years ago. There were two reasons: first the green carpet,with woven into it the crest of the Glasgow and South Western Railway Co, the hotel's first owner and in 1973 defunct for half a century; and, second, being handed a candle to take upstairs to illuminate the bedroom.

George Wishart, Borgue.