Your editorial (10 April) rightly notes that the problems facing the Open University are far greater than Peter Horrocks. You refer to the UCU vote of no confidence and our claim that he has lost the respect of staff. That is indeed the case. But it needs to be emphasised that over the past two weeks I have been part of the greatest single mobilisation of virtually unanimous feeling within a university that I have experienced in over 30 years working in higher education. “No confidence” and calls to resign with immediate effect have been articulated orally and by votes in a plethora of meetings, in letter-writing and via petitions in every quarter of the university – at every level. The message is unequivocal: if the Open University is to survive, a necessary condition is the resignation of the current vice-chancellor.

Professor Steve Tombs

Department of social policy and criminology, the Open University

• You are right to draw attention to the inadequacies of the present vice-chancellor and to draw a contrast with the deep loyalty and commitment of the staff of the OU. But in pointing to central government as being mainly responsible for the current difficulties, an important dimension of the OU is missed.

It is a UK-wide organisation and governments, learners and citizens in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have a claim on the institution and its progressive mission. In Wales, where the OU has been very well led in recent years, the Welsh government and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales have supported part-time opportunities for adult learners through the maintenance of public teaching funding and have a wider view of the purposes of HE, in line with the OU’s mission. No doubt ministers there (and in Scotland and Northern Ireland), not to mention learners, will be looking closely at how failures of leadership and a neglect of part-time provision in England are causing damage to an institution that they have invested in and upon which they have come to rely on in sustaining an open and progressive vision for higher education.

Ceri Phillips

Cardiff

• I had the privilege of working for the OU for more than 40 years. In that time, it had five vice-chancellors, with very different philosophies, personalities and styles. Looking back, I do not believe the way I worked was ever affected by how inspiring or otherwise I found the VC of the day, and the same was true of the majority of my colleagues. Our loyalties were to the university and its students, not to the person in the top job.

Donald Mackinnon

Suzhou, China

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