The letter from Gareth Jones, Machynlleth (November 20) is misleading and reveals an ill-informed prejudice.

He states that “Machynlleth is a town where the Welsh and English languages have always happily co-existed”. A meaningless generalisation. Most obvious is the 19th century ‘Treachery of the Blue Books’ where the Westminster parliament debated “the evil of the Welsh language”; “this disastrous barrier to all moral improvement”.

It concluded that speaking the Welsh language made boys into thieves and girls more promiscuous.

It gave legitimacy to justify using physical and emotional abuse to stop children speaking their first language in school.

The uncomfortable irony for the hypocrites was that because of Welsh medium Sunday school education, the majority of children in Wales were more literate than pupils in England at the time.

What my grandfather told me about his personal experience of the injustice of the ‘Welsh Not’ in school was upsetting and troubling for me as a Welsh speaking pupil.

Such experiences will also be very much part of “the heritage in Machynlleth” and so Gareth Jones has absolutely no justification today to use such emotive language like “using children as guinea pigs”.

Look at the facts. In most countries of the world, while it is normal to speak two languages, teaching through the medium of the country’s minority language has been proven objectively to be educationally beneficial for pupils in terms of measurable cognitive and intellectual development.

In Wales the evidence shows that Welsh medium pupils have better grades in English than monoglot English pupils.

Powys tax payers can no longer afford to maintain a small dual stream school. It is not cost effective, provides a reduced overall educational provision and reduces life opportunities for all the children.

So I ask Gareth Jones why would he wish to deny all local children the best educational and life opportunities in Machynlleth?

To claim that this is a “vanity project” for the authority has no basis in fact. It merely reflects his state of cognitive dissonance.

I have no intention to disrespect parental freedom of choice. But they have to accept that their personal freedom to choose has consequences as the education authority has to make decisions on a holistic basis.

Rhisiart ap Rhys, Llansanffraid-ym-Mechain.