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Last week in The THES...

Bill Gates argued that IT would help to control and cure some of the world's most terrible diseases.

Andy Miah+

PhD student

De Montfort University, Bedford.

Undoubtedly, the internet brings people together whom otherwise might not have any means of, or reason for, communication.

However, some of the world's most terrible diseases are finding a home on the global oracle of knowledge and stupidity that is the world wide web. The benefits that Bill Gates writes of are more likely to come through a highly restricted "intranet", where information is communicated freely but limited by distributed and co-operative bodies.

Alastair Thomson

Policy and Development Officer,

National Adult Institute for Continuing Education

If TECs were abolished, what would take on their functions as effectively and at no more expense? We have to recognise that colleges are only settling down after the upheavals associated with moving out of local authority control.

Lifelong learning partnerships in the immediate future are an extremely good idea because there is a system of checks and balances. We are in favour of partnership for now. But clearly two or three years down the line, when things have settled down a bit, there may well be place for giving colleges a stronger role.