IT is a measure of the depths to which our education system has sunk when children who should be attending lessons are sent home because of a broken down heating system.

It is even more depressing to learn that this has been going on for the past three years at Moredon Junior School and is set to continue for at least another year.

That means pupils having to endure four successive winters at risk of being sent home amid freezing classroom temperatures.

The plight of the town's beleaguered education authority is now well known. Having failed the crucial Government Ofsted report, it is also chronically underfunded, something which this newspaper has been doing its best to highlight and which up to now education secretary Estelle Morris appears to be ignoring.

But the situation at Moredon School cannot be allowed to continue.

Swindon's education director Mike Lusty says that the cabinet will look into the problem as a matter of urgency in the 2002/03 budget year.

Frankly that does not wash. Action should have been taken years ago and the least parents can expect now is for this to be settled in the forthcoming budget year.