Sol Gamsu rightly mentions the “older students doing access courses at FE colleges” and the pressure in funding for adult education in FE and more generally (Obsessing over Oxbridge is not the way to beat inequality, 3 January). Yet later it is implied that only the refounding of Vaughan College, following its closure by the University of Leicester, will continue to provide access to higher education for adults in the city. This ignores the 700 students, all adults, almost all from the local community, currently studying on access courses and for foundation degrees, HNCs and HNDs at Leicester College.
The majority of our higher education provision is offered in partnership with De Montfort University and has been awarded gold accreditation under the teaching excellence framework after decades of successful work by dedicated staff and determined students. Leicester College is proud to be the cornerstone of lifelong learning in the city and beyond.
Verity Hancock
Principal, Leicester College
• Paul Griseri (Letters, 4 January) is too sweeping when he states that “the main purpose of most business school activity ... is to improve the success of individual organisations without regard to wider implications”. The Chartered Association of Business Schools recently commissioned a documentary, The Impact Factor, highlighting the ways business schools add value to society and the economy. Hull University Business School, where I was dean between 1999 and 2011, was one of those featured. Our mission was to equip students for “responsible leadership in a complex world”. One example was of the CEO of a local logistics company who learned, from his MBA, the benefits of decentralising decision-making and promoting ethical supply chains. A second was of a PhD student, then regional director of the World Health Organization for Africa, who used the systems thinking approach developed at Hull to shape the response to the West Africa Ebola outbreak.
Mike C Jackson
Professor emeritus, University of Hull
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