[unclear: week] Salient ran an article on the Econ 101 and two readers have submitted their views [unclear: is] course. It is indeed welcome to see Salient as a forum for debate on the quality and na—[unclear: nf] education at Vic. Salient encourages other [unclear: fi], both staff and students, to enter this de—either on Econ 101 or just any general [unclear: comi] they have on other courses.

[unclear: futher] to K. Gallagher's report on the Econ[unclear: irbatr], may I add the comments of an anxious [unclear: inting] student.

[unclear: the] the lectures on 3rd April Professor Bertram [unclear: ked] that the course was geared to the needs [unclear: ca] students who constitute most of the Econ[unclear: lass]. Many of these students will not be con[unclear: ns] further in the study of economics, yet they [unclear: tc] making decisions in the future based on what learned at stage 1 level.

heir need, therefore, is for a balanced [unclear: persve]. Surely it is dangerous to unleash on the ess community a series of graduates trained [unclear: rrlook] the vitally significant role unions, [unclear: nroent] and business corporations play in [unclear: ing] economic issues. Not all countries base economies on the market price system — [unclear: ve] reasonably expect, on the one hand, to with these countries whilst on the other [unclear: e] the theory on which their economic [unclear: prince] are based?

higher proportion of students who left [unclear: sc]-before the seventh form is to be found in [unclear: oinmerce] Faculty than in any other. For BCA students Economics I will be their chance to study a social science. They will, [unclear: e] other hand, be given plenty of practice [unclear: dysis] in other subjects. I feel that a [unclear: respondy] falls on the Economics Department to the university's function of expanding men-[unclear: trixons] and teaching young minds to inves— [unclear: ting] to query - not just to regurgitate narrow[unclear: ed] or irrelevant material in examinations. Maynard Keynes (who incidentally studied [unclear: tophy] at Cambridge) would have been the [unclear: o] condemn a narrow rigid approach to his, [unclear: y] other theory.

[unclear: lose] hardy or foolish enough to persevere [unclear: ige] 111 will undoubtedly reverie a fully—[unclear: led] training. Or will they? What truth is in the rumour that, as from next year, the [unclear: e] in Marxian economics is to be removed? [unclear: re] a danger that neo-classical lectures will breed yet another generation of neo-classical lectures?

If neo-classical theory is to be a useful study, it can Only be so alongside alternative approaches. An analytical tool is of no use without a realistic framework within thich to appy it.

J. Pallot.

I was interested to read K. Gallagher's article on recent developments in Economics 101 lectures (Salient, 9 April).

As a veteran Economics student, I can quite appreciate the problem that Bob Stephens and Prof. Bertram found themselves facing. There is a basic problem with the relationship of the subject matter of "Economics" to the real world, and nowhere is this more evident than in the subject of price theory.

Economics price theory is only capable through the methods of supply and demand, of giving insight into changing prices, and can tell us nothing about why prices were established in the first place. A major factor in mis, of course, is the fallacions argument about the relationship between price and the returns on capital.

But how could the poor economics teachers talk about these subjects. The whole house of cards on which what they teach might have tumbled around them. We wouldn't want to subject them to the indignity of having no job, now, would we!!

Salient recently received three short articles in which the writer records their impressions of their first Stage 1 Psychology LEcture. Salient hopes that other Psych students will write in with their comments, both on these articles, and also on the way in which the course has developed so far this year.