ÖйúAƬ

Ann Rossiter, acting director of the Social Market Foundation, urges state schools and colleges to follow ÖйúAƬ into the market (Opinion, May ). This is the intention of the "basically free-market system" introduced by the 2004 ÖйúAƬ Act. As fees are raised, the hierarchy of universities and colleges competing on specialised course offers will present a model for schools and what will remain of further education after the Foster review.

Along with the fees hike being demanded for advanced further education courses, sixth-form fees can also be anticipated. This follows the Social Market Foundation argument that since A levels, like degrees, can lead to higher than average earnings, students should pay for them.

Rossiter grotesquely presents this dismantling of free public service education as progressive reform to end subsidies for wealthy students. In reality, variable ÖйúAƬ fees mean cost will determine "choice", with rich kids at posh universities on expensive and longer courses, while poor students attend shorter courses at cheap and local former polytechnics. The class divide entrenched in ÖйúAƬ will be more clearly tied to money.

Even before fees rise to their full cost, pressure is growing from academics reacting with all the communality of a shoal of piranha to leave teaching to others. The resulting elimination of "vulnerable" departments is only the beginning of a process of market-managed consolidation that will merge or close more departments along with whole institutions.

While most universities pretend there is no market if they all charge Pounds 3,000, the more realistic recognise that when the cap is raised, as the Social Market Foundation wants as soon as possible, not everyone can follow Oxford University to charge the ?18,600 annually it needs to sustain its average student cost. Some in the middle ranks of universities will look to survive by teaching rich kids and overseas students. Unlike the US, the market is not big enough to sustain them and they will inevitably become mass training universities. This is the example the ÖйúAƬ Act is intended to give to schools and colleges, where relentless academic selectivity has reconstituted itself at all levels. The appointment of the Social Market Foundation's director, Philip Collins, to advise the Prime Minister on further reform is therefore superfluous.

Patrick Ainley
Professor of training and education Greenwich University