IT was with interest and no little disbelief that we read the current unelected chairs of university courts and governing bodies arguing against bringing in elected chairs (“University leaders unite to criticise elected-posts plan”, The Herald, February 8) on the basis of protecting diversity and equality.

That people who have gained their position without having to face election are not keen on having to do so in future is perhaps no great surprise. What was surprising though was the attempt to claim that diversity and equality are served by the current system of unelected posts and that open elections pose a threat. In fact it was as recently as 2011/12 that there were no women chairs of court at all and only 25 per cent of court members were women. The progress seen since then has been a direct result of the increased scrutiny on the sector and its governance arrangements on account of the 2012 von Prondzynski review and subsequent call for legislation from the University and College Union (UCU) and NUS Scotland.

Put simply, the powers at the top of universities thought they could negate the threat of legislation if they were seen to begin to put their house in order. That we have seen progress as a result of the threat of legislation begs the question of how much better we could be if we actually legislated and included measures on diversity and equality in the governance bill.

The bill still has to go through parliamentary stages during which it can be amended. If the current unelected chairs are so concerned about gender equality then UCU stands happy to work with them to suggest and support amendments to enshrine gender quotas and equality in the bill at this late stage.

Douglas Chalmers, UCU Scotland president, and Mary Senior, UCU Scotland official,

Ingram House, 227 Ingram Street, Glasgow.

WHEN all 18 chairs of Scotland's higher education institutions write to The Herald (Letters, February 18) I can be certain they must really be feeling the heat from the Scottish Government.

Their words seem so defensive over protecting their incestuous oligarchy; it becomes increasingly clear that central government should have stepped in long before now. How can these independent establishments imagine that Holyrood will hand over a budget of more than £1 billion and not want a productive say in how they run themselves? The fact that the chairs unanimously confess that they would not have stood for competitive election surely displays either a feeble lack of confidence or too long a stay in a cosy ivory tower environment.

Your leader comment (“Questions remain on plans to alter university controls”, The Herald, February 8) summed up the situation concisely: “ The critics of reforms need to do more to explain why these changes are a problem, and why the principle of democracy amounts to such a threat to our universities.”

Our universities are perhaps dependent on a mythical public perception that they are somehow at the top of some learning ladder. I believe that the modern public are becoming increasingly persuaded to the idea that learning routes are not vertical but horizontal. We are all travelling on a flat road where some people will stop off where and when appropriate - at colleges, apprenticeships, in-work training, online learning and some will stop off at a university.

I suggest that the comprehensive voice of public opinion on equality will increasingly inform our higher education institutions and that they should recognise it is time that their privileged cerebral world joined everyone on the level and accept healthy egalitarian change.

Bill Brown,

46 Breadie Drive, Milngavie.

IN your report on the numbers of students from deprived communities admitted to Scottish universities (“Slow progress in widening access to higher education”, The Herald, February 5) you state: “The six institutions which saw numbers drop were Aberdeen, Abertay, Dundee, Edinburgh Napier, Glasgow Caledonian, Queen Margaret and St Andrews.”

Unfortunately, numbers with proportions. The number of Scottish students admitted to St Andrews from the most deprived communities in 2014/15 actually rose from 63 to 86. As a proportion of our overall entrant class of approximately 500 however, this represented a small decrease of 0.3 per cent.

By itself, the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) is a peculiarly blunt instrument for determining need in higher education. Had the Duke of Cambridge applied to university from his grandmother’s house at Holyroodhouse, he would have been recorded in Scottish Government SIMD figures as a student from a deprived community.

In St Andrews, we therefore use a broad basket of criteria, in addition to SIMD, to determine need. This includes establishing if our applicant has been in care, was in receipt of free school meals, is the first in their family to go to university or comes from a low progression school.

By these measures, 39 per cent of our Scottish entrant class in 2014/15 were students from access backgrounds.

Niall Scott,

Director of Communication, University of St Andrews, College Gate, St Andrews.