Tory tosh

Damian Green's suggestion that our degree courses are "not proper academic courses" is insulting to the students who work hard to achieve their award and wrong ("Mickey Mouse list is 'ignorant'", THES , August 22).

We offer not a degree in floristry but a higher national diploma in commercial floral design, and a very good one too. We offer both HND and degree courses, all vocationally oriented and all well respected by employers and taught at an appropriate level. Our graduates get jobs.

Green and Chris Woodhead, who first coined the term "Mickey Mouse degrees", should visit Myerscough and see first hand. If they still hold these views afterwards, so be it, but at least they would be based on first-hand knowledge and research - the essence of an academic training. My college is not DisneyWorld but a respected centre for further and higher education.

John Moverley
Principal, Myerscough College