Prof Stefan Collini (English universities are in peril because of 10 years of calamitous reform, 31 August) presents some powerful arguments about chaotic university reforms. I would make one further point. A previous Conservative government laid the seeds for this debacle 30 years ago when it made polytechnics into universities, believing that this would raise their status. It is clear that this has not happened.
I was proud to be a senior lecturer at the Polytechnic of the South Bank with its four-year sandwich degree in mathematics and computing, enabling less academically qualified students to succeed and get jobs. I also ran a postgraduate course in maths education for students whose first degree fell short of expectations. Many students with third-class degrees went on to senior educational posts. I also had the privilege of teaching mature students in their 80s.
Polytechnics were set up to be different, with a stronger focus on teaching. They were local, serving their communities effectively and offering more vocationally oriented courses, though applied research was also encouraged. This alternative was sadly abolished by the stroke of a pen in 1992.
Prof Ramesh Kapadia
Surbiton, London
• I hope I have misunderstood Prof Paddy Hillyard’s comments (Letters, 2 September) criticising criminology’s expansion. If not, they exemplify what is wrong with the thinking of Britain’s social science establishment. While it is true that student numbers in criminology have surged, this is neither the result of disciplinary “imperialism” nor a cause for concern. Perhaps it simply reflects that what and how criminology is taught is a marketable package that gives students what they want.
Rather than decrying our success, those in less happy fields might wish to reflect on lessons they can learn. If students are less concerned with the more “significant” fields of inquiry, perhaps it’s because they do a poorer job of explaining why they matter.
Mark Littler
University of Huddersfield
• The sociologist Prof Hillyard writes disparagingly about criminology degrees. To add balance, when I read criminology at Cambridge in the 1960s, the university was riven with debate as to whether sociology was an academic discipline at all or merely a borrowing from several others.
Peter Quinn
Helperby, North Yorkshire
