Education letters

Dream teachers Last week, teachers gave their responses to Jamie's Dream School, on Channel 4,in which Rolf Harris taught art, Mary Beard taught Latin and David Starkey told a student he was fat When I was 11 and making heavy weather of algebra, my maths teacher called me a "decomposed lump of muck". It wasn't encouraging, but no one found her methods unnacceptable or took her to task. Victoria Owens Bristol • I'd like to know if Jamie Oliver would even consider letting celebrities work in his restaurants, or would prefer people who know what they are doing. LarrydelaCrois via EducationGuardian.co.uk • Rolf Harris was better at teaching than the others. There is a reason for this. He and I graduated from the same teachers' college in Perth, Australia. He is an experienced classroom teacher. einsteinsdaughter via EducationGuardian.co.uk • I think this programme will show that real teachers are real heroes. My first lesson was well prepared, well planned, had aims and objectives, but I wasn't used to teaching of this kind; I got better pretty quick, I think. Hope you'll stay tuned long enough to see the improvement! MaryBeard via EducationGuardian.co.uk Libyan money Matthew Partridge asked whether it is possible for universities to make sure they do not accept funds from sources that could later turn out to be embarrassing, such as the Libyan regime The London School of Economics has lost a great director as a result of a witchhunt by newspapers. LSE's ties with the regime have been in the public domain for years and nobody cared until Libya became a trending topic. Ruledfeint via EducationGuardian.co.uk • Matthew Partridge goes straight to the crux of the matter. Because we cannot predict the future, the entrepreneurial model of funding we are increasingly moving towards inevitably gives rise to the public discomfort being experienced by the LSE and other universities. However, insufficient emphasis is being given in the current debate to the impact on students. Now, they also have to worry about who might be bank-rolling their education. This in addition to which subject to choose, whether they'll get a place (if they opt for university education at all) and how to repay the state through taxation. Can it really only be as recently as 1997 that students' main worries were stretching themselves academically and stretching their grant to last the full term? Gareth Dent, Open College of the Arts, Barnsley Profit problem Roger Brown asked whether opening the door to for-profit providers would be good for UK higher education The US seems to manage: no one in their right mind thinks the standing or educational rigour of Stanford or Penn are jeopardised by the existence of profit-making institutions elsewhere. MrBendy via EducationGuardian.co.uk • I've worked in both the not-for-profit and for-profit sectors, on both sides of the Atlantic. For-profit providers are more focused on student support, and on providing a good learning experience (no students, no salaries). Nor should one think that not-for-profits are not concerned with making a "profit". They are, but it's simply called a surplus. GeoffreyAlderman via EducationGuardian.co.uk