Letter: Top of the class for PC madness

DR MILLER (director, Open University in Scotland) is right to point out the flexibility of its courses (Letters, 15 August).

He, perhaps, didn't emphasise the breadth of subjects that can be studied nor the fact that this institution - the largest university in the UK - has its teaching materials scrutinised by the traditional "prestigious" universities in the country so that any accusations of "dumbing-down" just won't stick.

My only criticism is that the OU has recently been afflicted by the scourge of politically correct 21st-century education in that students are starting to be marked as "good" or "less good". After I passed my BSc, I undertook some minor courses to "keep my hand in". In an 'Astronomy' course, I was asked for the distance to 'galaxy x', given its luminosity. When I entered an answer in figures, I expected a "yes/no" mark but, instead, got something like "shows a reasonable grasp of the course concepts".

Time to get back to older-style education concepts if the OU wants to retain a degree (sorry) of respectability, I think.

Barry Lees, Greenock