Fuller figures

I was concerned to see our institution named as one of the bottom five ("Best and worst work wise", THES, March 20) and feel your graph was most misleading.

Many of our graduates are in art and design and humanities. They traditionally take longer to find jobs, as indicated by figures produced in April 1997, when the percentage of our unemployed graduates had fallen to 8 per cent from 14.5 per cent in December 1996.

Although it is not requested by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, we feel that the April figures provide a more realistic picture of graduate first destinations.

If you look at employment rather than unemployment figures in the HESA report, you see that University of Wales College Newport is at 57.6 per cent - above the Wales and United Kingdom average.

Willie Stewart. Head of careers, University of Wales College Newport