Letter: Education defence

As a lecturer in a Scottish university, I am sure I speak for the majority of staff in supporting the Scottish Government's continued defence of higher education as a public good; that is, a vital service free at point of use and paid for out of general taxation by those in work and thus able to pay (your report, 30 June).

The SNP deserves great credit for not selling the pass on this issue, as the Labour Party did in England.

The promises at the time that fees would remain low and that lecturing staff would receive large salary increases, were insincere and have been shown to be utterly false. Only fools believed them. The monstrously inflated fees now being charged in universities all over England, by far the highest in Europe, are an inevitable outcome of that loss of principle.

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Mike Russell is also perfectly justified in raising caps on fees for students from England. This is not racist, discriminatory, anti-English, or anything of the kind - it is a sad consequence of the British government's misguided and inhumane policies, and he and the Scottish Government should vigorously reject any insinuation of blame.

(Dr) Alistair Duff

Glen Douglas Drive

Cumbernauld