I WAS taken aback by Andrew Denholm's story on gender segregation in our universities and colleges ("Universities are urged to tackle gender segregation on courses".

The Herald, August 1).

Women already outnumber men in university and college admissions. Law and medicine have more female than male graduates, but still Alex Salmond thinks he can squeeze another populist headline into the equation to appeal to those of a feminist disposition.

Where is the concern for men to be encouraged into female-dominated professions such as primary teaching, social work and nursing, where they are badly needed to redress the bias in favour of women in these professions?

Men are particularly important in teaching and social work if there is no father in the family for children to relate to.

Sadly, I suspect political correct­ness may be the answer to my question.

Elizabeth Mueller,

12 Bank Street,

Hillhead,

Glasgow.

WHILE agreeing with the need to get more women to take higher education courses in scientific and technological disciplines, the question is "how".

Like it or not, such disciplines are perceived as harder than, say, those associated with media studies, social sciences, communications, languages, and humanities, although the effort that is required to achieve success in the latter is surely no less.

I feel that it all starts in schools, which need to show that their science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) subjects are as interesting and enjoyable as any others and enable entry to a very wide range of higher-level courses linked to excellent employment prospects; higher education and industry staff can be funded to go to schools to make the case.

Some pupils just do not like, say, chemistry or physics, whether this is associated with these disciplines' images or perhaps with unimagin­ative teaching is uncertain, but it may be a part of the reason why so many girls want to give them up and higher education courses associated with them. Some prejudices also need to be dispelled, such as engineering being dirty and "unfeminine". Families have a role here to avoid unconsciously reinforcing gender divisions.

It is easy for Holyrood to tell higher education institutions to sort it out and then step aside, but Holyrood has actively to assist in finding the best way given all the variables.

(Dr) Joe Darby,

Glenburn, St Martins Mill, Cullicudden, Dingwall.

YOUR report of my analysis of the recent rise in student borrowing in Scotland usefully drew attention to the impact on poorer students especially of the substantial move away from the use of student grants here ("Sharp increase in student debt after scrapping of bursaries", The Herald, July 29). However, it suggested grants had been "scrapped". It's important that students and prospective students in Scotland know that some grant is still available at lower incomes, albeit less than before, and well below the levels elsewhere in the UK, and in particular in Wales.

Lucy Hunter Blackburn,

62 Kirk Brae, Edinburgh.