From Dr Robert Brooks, Programme Leader Ba (Honours) Business Studies Degree, Wirral Metropolitan College:-

FURTHER to my open letter which you kindly published in last week's Wirral Globe, could I now, through your columns and for the benefit of many hundreds of messages of support I received from colleagues and students alike, pass on the following information?

At the degree awards boards of Stafford University held this week (for the benefit of Mr John Conlon, Chairman of the Board of Governors of Wirral Metropolitan College, the degrees we do at Wirral Met are not our degrees, they are from very well established and accredited Universities; therefore by implication, do your remarks apply to these institutions as well I wonder?) my students achieved the following:-

Out of 400-plus students in the Ba (Hons) Business Studies degree from Stafford University this year, there is a total of seven first class honours degrees and, surprise, surprise, two of those seven are from Wirral Metropolitan College (out of a complement of 40 graduating students).

As a matter of interest, a further two came from Wolverhampton which is also an F.E. college. At Wirral, we have achieved a 95 per cent success rate in this degree programme this year - not bad for a college dealing with the insinuated "below normal level intelligence" students.

At level two, from a total of 400-plus students across the entire Stafford Business Degree programme (we have 32 of them at Wirral), Wirral Met students occupied four out of the top 10 places for academic achievement for 1998-99.

I am sure my colleagues at Wirral Metropolitan College will be informing you of equally successful degree student achievements in due course, from across the numerous degree programmes we offer.

Malvern Road, Wallasey.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.