The article “Let’s protect the foundations of UK creativity” (Comment), casts a nostalgic eye back to a “golden past” of British art schools. Certainly, the free tuition and maintenance grants that allowed generations to progress through higher education debt-free was hugely beneficial. But in those days, only 6% of the population entered higher education. Today it is nearly 50%. The author’s comments about social mobility are not borne out by recent Ucas statistics, which show an increase in female applicants and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The article arrives at an unexpected conclusion between “straitened financial times” and the apparent replacement of practitioner teachers with “educationalists and academics”. Surely places of learning are meant to be populated by “educationalists and academics”? The fact that students in the 1970s and 1980s were taught by figures such as artist Michael Craig Martin is fantastic; but it still happens today. Jane Wilson (Turner prize nomination 1999) is a senior tutor in fine art at the RCA; Gerry McGovern (chief creative officer of Range Rover) is a visiting professor here.
Let’s not get too misty-eyed. Many of today’s leading figures shudder when they recall the misogyny and rampant favouritism of their student days.
Paul Thompson
Rector, Royal College of Art
London SW7
Improve engineering’s image
As a retired chartered civil engineer, with daughters and granddaughters, I am fully supportive of the move to encourage more women into the profession of engineering (“Recruit women, urges engineers’ first female leader”, News)
The question that needs to be asked is why, according to Naomi Climer (Institution of Engineering and Technology chief), “… parents and teachers are still discouraging children from considering professions in engineering by depicting it as drab and dirty”. I think it all stems from the image in the mind of the general public of what an engineer is, and they can be forgiven when anybody can call themselves an engineer in this country, even if they have no academic qualifications.
It is all a question of status and until this matter gets resolved there is not going to be any radical change in attitudes. When will the government get together with the engineering institutions, and the employers to solve this problem for the good of the country?
Michael F Tong
Kingsbridge
Devon
Me, black cabs and the rain
Evgeny Morozov asks “Does Silcon Valley’s reign herald the end of social democracy?” (Focus)in relation to black cabs: “Should my taxi ride subsidise the rides of blind and disabled people?” The short reply is that it doesn’t. The access features on black cabs date back to the 1980s and were long ago accounted for in financial terms. The problem with black cabs is often the driver. As a fulltime wheelchair-user I know that when it is raining in London there is no prospect of a taxi stopping for me. Recently, on a two-and-a-half mile journey from the Houses of Parliament to Euston station three taxis passed with their “hire” light illuminated. Two of the drivers saw me but looked away and continued. One stopped and the driver asked how I would get in. When I suggested he deploy the fitted ramp, he said: “I can’t do that. It’s raining and I haven’t got a coat.” Uber is no better because I couldn’t get my wheelchair into any of their vehicles even if their drivers were more customer-focused than some (not all) London cabbies. Perhaps Silicon Valley could develop an app to remind cabbies to take a raincoat to work.
Bert Massie
Liverpool
Housing association rents rising
Those of us who rent from housing associations on terms protected from the excesses of the market instinctively join our landlords in opposing the sale of social housing. As Will Hutton says, such subsidised sales would take two homes off the affordable market and fail to finance comparable replacements (“The broadening of right-to-buy will inevitably worsen the housing crisis”, Comment).
The problem is that too many associations, even the supposedly charitable ones like Peabody or Dolphin Square, are imposing rents that rise at rates significantly above their costs or of tenants’ incomes. It is as though they think the subsidy for the housing of the poor shouldn’t come from their philanthropic trusts but from their less poor tenants and that the definition of “affordable” is that they’ve found somebody who can afford it. If our housing associations are to get their own tenants’ support for retaining their ownership they will have to make a better case for their rents.
Nik Wood
London E9
Labour MPs’ lamentable antics
Thank you for publishing Ed Vulliamy’s article (“Why I take issue with the Observer’s stance on Corbyn”, Comment). It offered a welcome corrective to the barrage of negative comment directed at Jeremy Corbyn. That few Labour MPs supported his nomination is one thing; but once an overwhelming majority of the party and Labour supporters had elected him, their cold-shouldering of their new leader sends a clear message to the voters – that their representatives view them with contempt.
Jenny Bryer
Birmingham
