Sir

I was interested in your News story “Proposed scheme will scrutinize student supervisors” (Nature 413, 761; 2001) describing the plans by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to improve training and standards for the supervisors of postgraduate students in the United Kingdom.

Raising the standards for postgraduate student supervision is a good thing. However, the rush by government and other higher-education bodies to introduce 'quality assurance' wherever conceivable, with initiatives such as the Research Assessment Exercise and the Institute for Learning and Teaching, appears little more effective in alleviating the real problems than sticking a plaster over a gangrenous wound.

The acknowledged difficulty in enrolling well-qualified postgraduate students in the United Kingdom — and the reason so many PhDs do not seek employment in their subjects — probably stems from the lack of an equitable career structure in higher education. I cannot think of another career where the most experienced practical practitioners, postdocs, live from short-term contract to short-term contract and risk being priced out of the job market when they have acquired years of experience.

This situation needs to be urgently remedied. Introduce a nationally recognized training scheme which allows research trainees to build a recognized skills portfolio. This would help them secure jobs as they progress through their career — even if this means reducing the number of PhD places. Training could include skills such as grant writing, staff management, project management and writing papers, in addition to traditional technical hands-on abilities.

Even when postdoctoral trainees do manage to get academic positions, they find that, since the late seventies, academic salaries have fallen far below those of comparable professions and of the private sector. Students graduating with an undergraduate degree and saddled with debts of, on average, £16,000 (US$22,600) are hardly likely to consider further years of penury and job insecurity worth the risk. Unless the government has the foresight to address these overarching problems, the future of the higher education sector and the intellectual skills base of the United Kingdom looks bleak. In the end you get the system that you pay for.

It would also be of help if carrots were used instead of sticks. How about HEFCE giving a pay rise to staff who do meet their new training standards? I would also be intrigued to know if this new spirit of 'above-board correctness' extends to paying realistic fees for external examiners of PhD theses. Currently the average fee is £120 to examine a PhD thesis; the Association of University Teachers recommends a fee of £450, which is not unreasonable. Try asking a management consultant to read about 250 pages, consult libraries and travel to cross-examine someone for this fee. The last time that I heard of an external examiner asking for £450, the candidate's supervisor was told to find another examiner who would accept the lower fee.