Pluses and minuses

On the same day that you carried league tables for universities, you published a report showing that higher education is to be left out of the "radical reform" of post-compulsory education (THES, April 23).

The two stories show that while the old binary divide persists, a new divide is opening. FE, adult education and training are on one side; HE on the other. Each has a different attitude to measuring quality.

HE institutions have nine indicators, of which only three show anything about quality of education (teaching assessment, research assessment exercise and destinations).

Indicators in the FE and training sectors are closer to a market logic, but scarcely better for it. At least there is an attempt to calculate drop-out rates, but there are no valid data for students' destinations.

A truly radical rethink would go across all sectors.

Judith Watson

School of Post-Compulsory Education and Training, University of Greenwich