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John Sutherland (Letters, THES , December 20/) claims that computer science students can spend less than half a working week on study.

I teach my course unit - one of four students take - on the basis that students do ten hours a week. Computing is a practical subject. It has a high failure rate because students often do not realise that they need to spend several hours in the lab for each hour in the lecture theatre. A computer science degree passed without lab work and exercises is a dumbed-down degree.

Matthew Huntbach
Queen Mary, University of London