BEING a habitual viewer of TV quiz programs, I often wonder if student grants are not a waste of public funds. I have just watched two university students in their second year, who did not know that the English king that was beheaded by Oliver Cromwell was Charles I.

I left school during a war in 1943 at the age of 14 with the prospect of a job as an errand boy, and to me and my class mates, this question would have been accepted as elementary English history, yet here we have two university students in their second years, studying foreign languages who didn’t have a clue.

It seems that these people are too keen to learn about other countries before they know anything about their own.

What annoys me more is the answer given to so many other history questions when the answer is not forthcoming, such as: “I’m afraid this was before my time.”

Can someone please tell me anything from history that is not before their time?

Unfortunately, such situations are only too regular and are by no means isolated, so I ask again, are our universities earning their laurels?

T Seale, Middlesbrough