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AS WE await publication of the government's white paper on lifelong learning and consider the proper contribution to it of colleges and universities, I do hope the debate will not be conducted by misleading, tabloid-style headlines in The THES.

The complex issues involved must not be reduced to a crude choice between the merits of further and higher education.

I have never advocated that universities should "model" themselves on further education colleges (as my directly quoted remarks demonstrate), nor have I used the phrase that universities need to "sign up" to a new vision.

If I do not explicitly rule things out, that should not suggest that I implicitly rule them in.

I have been very encouraged by universities' responsiveness to the post-Dearing debate and their declared willingness to contribute to the culture of lifelong learning.

R H Fryer Chair National Advisory Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning