Zoë Blackler’s editorial (November 19) misses the point, which is that architectural education, as we have known it since the 1958 Oxford Conference, and the universities’ research assessment exercise are incompatible.

No matter how much we might deplore its decision, the University of Cambridge has recognised this and acted on it. The true purpose of a university is not to teach, but to educate, and for this, academic research is essential: teaching-only departments will ossify.

The only solution for schools of architecture is to allow academic staff to concentrate on research (which is fed back into the curriculum through lectures, tutorials and crits) and for studio teaching to be undertaken by part-time tutors from practice. Practitioners, therefore, have to recognise that their responsibility towards architectural education extends beyond accommodating “year out” students.

Ultimately, the situation must return to one analogous to that of the pre-Oxford Conference system, where young people learned the art (and also the profession) of architecture in the office and were educated in architecture, through evening, block or day-release classes, in the schools.

Universal awarding of degrees in architecture and the constant striving of universities towards being centres of (research) excellence, has further muddied the waters.

Now that all programmes are, more or less, their own budgetary unit bases, they have to stand on their own feet. For architecture schools, due to expensive, studio-based teaching, this is difficult.

Professional architectural education should be returned to practice, degrees replaced by diplomas, and academics allowed to get on with what they are good at rather than struggling to meet the conflicting demands of Arb, the RIBA, HEFCE, their university, and every other interested body.

Neil Jackson, professor of architectural engineering, University of Leeds