Leader: Customer care or collegiality?
Even before the advent of top-up fees, consumer culture is changing the relationship between universities and students. Our survey shows a sharp rise in the number of student complaints since 2002-03...
Search
-
-
Leader: Some A-grade carping
The exam boards' humane decision to put back the announcement of A-level results to spare candidates the annual deluge of carping about standards has not prevented the ritual exchanges taking place...
-
Staff morale hangs in balance
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research report into recruitment and retention of academic staff in higher education does not, as your headline suggests, recommend the downgrading of...
-
Disciplined thinking
David Packham (Letters, August 12) quotes the Dearing report that universities should "sustain a culture that demands disciplined thinking". Part of that discipline should be to curb wilfully literal...
-
No mercy for Mao
It is strange that Delia Davin reviewing Mao: The Unknown Story (August 12) should appear not to wish to seem an apologist for Mao, because this is how she comes across in her attack on the authors...
-
Tax-free PhD
I read the horrors of Sally Baker's existence as a PhD student with interest (Why I... August 5). She said: ''My friend kept... paying my council tax because my scholarship didn't extend to such...
-
Further figures
The report on the Freedom of Information Act deposition from the Higher Education Funding Council for England ("Hefce admits to gaps in its financial oversight regime", August 12) needs clarification...
-
Infinite issues 1
As John Barrow says, when a theory in physics gives infinite answers something is usually thought to be wrong with it ("The battle that just rages on and on", August 12). When classical physics gave...
-
Infinite issues 2
I would like to claim the prize for being the first to notice that Brett Ryder's celestial Moebius strip is not one. Ignoring the break, it has two surfaces (or four with the edges) not one. Of...
-
Passages to India
It is encouraging that the Government recognises the fact that lamentably small numbers of British students go to study in India and that the Prime Minister's visit in September could help to improve...
-
New-aged group
First, articles and letters complain about tired oldies resisting change and impeding the progress of younger people. Then others complain of ageism because research assessment exercise rules are...
-
Call me a geographer
I wholly agree that "academic geography is relevant to policy and political debate" (Soapbox, August 5). It's hard to find a government department that geographers don't engage with. And, despite the...
-
Cathedrals again
Andrew Slim should not be so quick with the tut-tutting (Letters, August 12). No one has ever suggested that possession of a Roman Catholic cathedral, after the Reformation, made any difference to...
-
No quibble with QAA
Your story on Kingston University's recent Quality Assurance Agency report reminds me of those extracts from theatre reviews that end up on billboards - "a wonderful night out" but omitting "if it...
-
No release from house of cards
The AAAS is calling on the US to free scientist Huda Ammash, aka 'Mrs Anthrax'. Steve Farrar reports When Huda Ammash turned herself in to the US authorities in May 2003, the Pentagon was jubilant....