Ste,--The leading article in your issue of March 6, concerning

university education, with particular reference to the universities of Oxford and Cam- bridge, displays a not uncommon indifference to the facts.

Taking the latest UGC figures for the academic year 1961-62 (Cmnd. 2135, September, 1963), you will find:

Students entering universities in the academic year 1961-62 to read for a first degree or diploma

Men

Women .

Total England .. 17,827 6,693 24,520 Wales. .. 1,602 879 2,481 Scotland .. 3,535 1,624 5,159

-- --- 22,964 Total .. 9,196 32,160 The numbers of students entering the following three universities in that year were:

Men Women Total Oxford .. . • 2,375 422 2,797 Cambridge . • 2,261 244 2,505

4,636 666 5,302

— -- 3,592 5,274 London

1,682 The students entering in 1961-62 were about 18-19 years of age on average, and were born, therefore, about 1942-43. The total size of the age-group for 1942-43 was about 680,000, divided about equally between the sexes..

It can, therefore, be calculated that 2.7 per cent of the females in the age-group entered universities; and 7 per cent of the males. Oxford and Cambridge together admitted 0.2 per cent of the females and 1.4 per cent of the males. London admitted 0.5 per cent of the females and just over 1 per cent of the males.

This sex differential in our present system of university education is too often overlooked, as is the fact that London admits very nearly as many students each year as Oxford and Cambridge com- bined—but with a far more generous provision for women students. Instead of advocating, against the views expressed by the Committee on Higher Education (Cmnd. 2154, October, 1963), that Oxford and Cambridge Univer- sities should be transformed into postgraduate institutions, would it not be more sensible to advo- cate that these two universities should reduce the number of male students admitted each year and increase the number of female students?