Finding a wiser use for electric currents
Echoes down the Corridor
Echoes down the Corridor

Mamoun Hassan revels in the humanism of a unique film-maker. The film director François Truffaut, never one to hold back - he famously derided British cinema as a contradiction in terms - was quite...
Gosh, Professor Lapping. Back so soon. You're looking well. Thank you, Maureen. I caught a little sun while catching up on essential reading by the pool. But time to get back into harness. Any urgent...
In a letter in March, I argued for an audit scheme (Letters, THES , March 30). This idea has indeed been accepted and forms the basis of the current consultative paper. But the basic Quality...
The resignation of John Randall as chief executive of the QAA points up the folly of abolishing the Council for National Academic Awards when the polytechnics were made universities. The CNAA was not...
"When universities try to minimise outside scrutiny, you have to wonder what they are afraid of." Thus Liberal Democrat higher education spokesman David Rendel ("Randall's exit imperils light touch...
The resignation of the QAA chief executive is not significant compared with the damage that may result if the plans for a severe reduction in quality assurance activity are adopted. My experience of...
John Randall says it is time to put the interests of the consumer first (Soapbox, THES , August 24). It is great shame the QAA never seriously adopted this principle. The University of Leeds has...
Now that he has some time on his hands, would John Randall care to supply an honest account and clear defence of his own "presumptions"? What conceptions of education and quality justify his habitual...
Universities do not have products or customers. Universities are not businesses. Neither students nor employers (far less university staff) are assisted by false analogies between universities and...
It is the RAE outcome, and not subject review scores, that is the defining standard by which the old universities judge themselves and, as a result, many academics now regard teaching as a burden and...
The condemnation to death of the peace activist Younis Shaikh under the blasphemy laws of Pakistan is an abuse of justice and humanity. While respecting religious difference, religion must also...
A Department for Education and Skills spokeswoman describes two-year foundation degrees as adding "a further rung on the coherent ladder of vocational learning" ("Colleges predict student shortfall...
Institutions with internal candidates should not advertise posts when they know in advance - though lack the courage to admit it to their staff - that they will be offered to internal candidates....
No, P. M. Wetherill (Letters, THES , August 17), I am not far-fetched fiction. I am every bit as real as Professor Lapping, who is in Ireland struggling to connect to the email between golf rounds,...