To admit, to pass and to fail

You are right to ask if it is really impossible to crack post-qualification admission (Leader, THES, June 9).

There is no doubt it would be possible. All the Department for Education and Employment has to do is issue an invitation to tender for the exclusive right to set all GCSEs, A levels, GNVQs and so on for a fixed period, perhaps five years. One of the conditions would be that bidders would have to be able to guarantee that results would be available by a certain date.

Does anyone seriously suggest that none of the existing boards would submit a bid?

Perhaps the strangest aspect of this whole question is that the universities maintain that post-qualification admission is uncrackable when many of them (not all post-92 institutions) will be practising it as fast as they can from August 17 in "clearing".

Martin Brady. London SW8