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Reading Austin Mitchell's letter ("Course is called to account", THES, September 17), I was surprised to see an MP write: "Under the deal with Oxford Brookes University, anyone studying for Association of Chartered Accountants exams from Timbuktu (my emphasis) and passing only part of the ACCA exams would get an Oxford Brookes honours degree."

Mitchell's wording could be taken to imply that he thinks that students from Timbuktu, although passing the same exams, are inferior to those from, say, Grimsby.

If his statement is not racial, it is certainly politically incorrect. For anyone, from wherever he or she may come, who passes "only part of the ACCA exams would get an Oxford Brookes honours degree" under, I assume, the rules laid down for Oxford Brookes University's awards.

Mike Harvey Romford