Your Views: Must try harder

With reference to your article "I'm a professor - so why do I earn less than a manager or a doctor?" (EDUCATION, 16 September), I am a recent mature graduate and if the things which I experienced during had happened in a company or hospital, a few heads would have rolled. During the first year, one lecturer was unanimously thought to be bad. Only one of 30 or so students did not write critically of this lecturer on a feedback form. Nothing was done and the lecturer remained.

Presentations were important because the marks for them affected your degree level. Despite dire warnings on time limits, these were handled casually. Favourite students were allowed to overrun the 20-minute "limit". Others were cut short. My presentation was cancelled twice because of lecturers' illness but rescheduled at short notice - in one case with no notice. The lecturer became hysterical when I pointed out the problem. Also, despite emphasis on the importance of hand-in dates for essays, the corresponding obligation on lecturers to return marked work before the next assignment was often ignored.

In a company, such inefficiency would be intolerable. The only saving grace is what one learns, and the friendliness and respect one encounters on the course.

FG ROBINSON,

Brighton