Send your letters to editor of the Reporter, Vanessa Bridge. Email the.reporter@leeds.ac.uk or send by internal post to press office, 12.67 E C Stoner building.

All letters will be considered for publication. We will not as a rule publish 'round robin' letters, letters that have been published elsewhere or letters that have also been sent to University colleagues for action. Letters may be cut (for space) and we will indicate where this has happened. If writers have asked questions, we will attempt to answer them. If they assert things we know to be untrue, we may add an editor’s note.

WIDENING ACCESS? (from Mark Ogden, director of language centre modules) Adrian Smith’s comments (Reporter 505) about widening participation and the provision of languages such as Gujarati and Welsh might be true, and certainly depict a regrettable state of affairs.
However, does he know (and do your readers?) that the language centre has for several years offered elective modules in Punjabi and Urdu to all Leeds students. We have also been running successful teacher training workshops for secondary Urdu teachers from Yorkshire.

Furthermore, since 2002, around 60 Leeds medical students have successfully completed a special elective in Punjabi with us.
It’s not all gloom, and it’s not all happening in London!


DONATIONS FOR THE GAMBIA (from Pauline Hick, school of biology) The school of biology teaching labs have donated 40 light microscopes to a charity called Pageant, set up to help education in The Gambia (www.pageant.org.uk). These microscopes were old but optically excellent, and as they didn’t have integral light sources were ideal for use in The Gambia. Other staff may like to look at the website as they may well find things in the backs of cupboards they could donate.