51³Ô¹Ï

YOUR FRONT page lead article (THES, November 22) tells us that "Universities expect to replace lecturers with information technology". However it curiously fails to mention the intended impact of IT on any other university employees, such as administrators and those in the various managerialist quangos whose burgeoning numbers are apparently now a feature of all universities, despite the cuts of which are only too painfully aware.

Is this perhaps because it is these functions in particular that are best replaced by the improved uptake of modern IT methods, and that the same plans would in fact also seek to recruit yet more administrators to help in our replacement?

Douglas Kell

Institute of biological sciences University of Wales

Aberystwyth