From BILL GEORGE
Your article ‘Polytechnics demand an end to ‘intellectual apartheid’
‘ (This Week, 7 April) contains a serious inaccuracy. It dwells on the anomalies
of the operation of the dual-support policy for research and, in particular,
on iniquities in the way it applies within the polytechnics via the PCFC,
compared with the treatment of universities via the UFC.
Polytechnics are not, as stated in your article, all within the PCFC
sector, since the Polytechnic of Wales is in the third sector within England
and Wales, MFHAE, within which it has recently received significantly less
all-round support than any other polytechnic.
In spite of this, in research terms it has performed above the average
of the other polytechnics as measured by the external indicators of funding
from SERC and research degree achievement. Within the statutory legal framework
of England and Wales the University of Wales is treated no differently to
universities of England which raises the question: why should the Polytechnic
of Wales be treated differently to the polytechnics in England?
Bill George The Polytechnic of Wales
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