A SHORT time ago, as a chairman of governors of a Darwen school, I attended an evening at Blackburn Town Hall which was hosted by Sir Bill Taylor.

Part of it was devoted to a strategic overview of the future of education within the context of the authority and, of course, it was upbeat and positive in content.

Indeed, we were once again proudly told of the authority's success in gaining Beacon status.

Since that evening, two major schools within the authority have been judged to be failing, in spite of being allocated special measures under the Education Action Zones.

Publicity has been given in the local press to the failings of the governors and the staff. There is a third party in this -- namely, the local authority education department.

The governors bring life experience to the running of the school and are completely voluntary and unpaid.

The staff bring professionalism and commitment to the life of the school.

Both rely upon the authority education department to assess and maintain the progress and legal status of the schools within the authority.

Each school has an educational adviser allocated to advise on the school's progress.

These people have wide experience in the education field, many having held senior positions in education prior to going into administration.

My own experience of advisers is that they are committed people. I value their advice in the forum of governor meetings, but I also know that should we, as a governing body, fail to act in the best interests of the school's future, then they would, quite rightly, report back to the authority and that steps would be taken to redress those errors.

In view of my experience then, the authority should have had some inkling at an earlier stage that things were not progressing as they should be at these schools. I believe the magnitude of these school failures demands an inquiry at the highest level.

The children that have passed through these schools during this period have been failed by the system.

They will not get another chance and, unfortunately, our society sets academic standards as a baseline no matter what field one goes into.

Now, either the authority was not aware of the seriousness of the situation, in which case, its system has failed and requires change, or that politically sensitive information has been witheld, until such time as it could be released into the public domain, doing the least political damage to the political sitting tenants.

As no other political party of any other political hue has held office in this authority since the war, the buck stops with you.

D D'ARCY, Haslingden Old Road, Knuzden.