According to your front page last week (“Tories poised to dump Diplomas), the Conservative party has canvassed opinion from across the education world and concluded that there is little support for the qualification.

It seems that they haven’t canvassed the engineers. In fact, there is considerable support among the engineering profession, particularly for the Diploma in Engineering but also for the Construction and Built Environment and Manufacturing Diplomas. An army of engineers and professors has worked hard to ensure that the Diploma in Engineering will get young people on to university degree courses and into the profession, and at a time when the economy needs them most.

With a return on investment just starting to show for the Diploma in Engineering in particular, surely we should give it time to prove its worth?

• Professor Matthew Harrison, Education for Engineering (E4E).