AFTER listening to a recent debate on the present-day usefulness of a university education, I can't help reflecting that 50 years ago, a grammar school education even without a "good" School Certificate at the end of it opened as many doors as does a university degree now.

Everything is relative. The job diversity in those days was by no means as great, neither was the number of areas into which someone could channel their talents.

There was a sharp divide between people who had had an elementary education and those who had been to grammar school and it was very difficult, if not impossible, to jump that divide. Thank goodness that divide has gone. Even the distinction between the graduate and the non-graduate is becoming blurred now.

There was once a mystique about having a degree. It didn't matter in what area you had your degree, you had climbed to rarified heights and were somehow a more worthwhile person.

That belief is disappearing. Maybe it's the unconventional areas in which people get degrees these days. But then, maybe I'm just old-fashioned in years and in outlook and in my degree.

HAROLD GREENHALGH,

Newquay Avenue, Ainsworth.