With all due respect to Frans H. Said's letter Some Streaming Essential In Education (February 11), I think that one who compares children to bad apples or diseased individuals should not have a say in their education. It is my belief that no child should be labelled as a "bad apple" in the first place; but if this must be so, does this give anyone the right to leave him/her to rot? Through his metaphor of apples in a basket, Mr Said is implying that by mixing low-achievers with high-achievers, we will end up with nothing but low-achievers - but isn't there the possibility (and probability) that the opposite will occur?

Mr Said also speaks of the need for "new types of teachers" who "would have undergone special psychological and practical training" - and as a first year B.Ed Primary student, I can say with certainty that the training we receive is just that. Besides including aspects of child and educational psychology, the B.Ed course also teaches student teachers intra-personal intelligence, to ensure that we understand ourselves and our emotions before being placed in a classroom. We also receive practical training in schools, and partake in weekly observation sessions in an assigned primary classroom. In response to Mr Said's wish for teachers to "educate and motivate the parents", primary school teachers are teachers of primary school students. We are not social workers, but educators of the young. Hence, it is not our responsibility, and neither is it within our professional capabilities, to educate parents. What we can and should do as teachers, is educate our pupils to believe in their own capabilities. By keeping them actively engaged, and motivating them through fun lessons that relate to their past experiences and previous knowledge (and thus the social context in which they live), we are giving children the opportunity to learn the value of education for themselves.

Children coming from families who do not value education do suffer learning disadvantages, but this does not render them incapable of learning, and neither does it give anyone the right to say that they are worth any less than those who do. Streaming means segregating according to achievement (and not ability), and can carry a lot of negative connotations and implications with it, which are hard to shake off. The idea that through streaming children can learn within their ability bracket is fair enough, but the fact that they are viewed and approached according to that bracket, is not.

There is no black and white when it comes to children; we cannot categorise them into streams because within each stream there will also be students of different abilities. Education should not require all children to fit into one mould, thereby creating outcasts of those who are not able to do so, but should mould itself to each pupil. Therefore, the new system is not one-size-fits-all, as Mr Said calls it; on the contrary, it advocates that each child is an individual with his/her own learning potential and abilities, and that it is the teacher's duty to cater to his/her pupils as individual learners.

I think that streaming makes a parody of education - which encompasses so much more than examinations and results - and it makes "bad apples" out of good ones on the basis of a single, academic performance.

I implore Mr Said to read the National Minimum Curriculum, and the Transition Document regarding the abolishing of streaming, so that he may see the opportunity that lies ahead, and I would like to congratulate our female Minister of Education (whose gender Mr Said seems to have a problem with) on its implementation.