Widen selection criteria Leave land alone

Medical students using the special entry system at Otago mustmeet aminimum examination standard. Then additional selection criteria apply. This apparently works. Meanwhile other students compete for entry on exam results

( Sept 16).

But how can one examination choose those best able to practise medicine for a lifetime? If examinations alone are too narrow a basis for choosing some students, maybe they are too narrow for all students.

If aminimum examination level were used for all, then lots of other criteria could be added to the selection system. For example, experience of different cultures and customs, experience of the world, knowledge of other languages, emotional intelligence, maturity, communication skills, ability towork in teams and stickability.

David Wright, Wellington

University to fight legal challenge,

David Seymour’s suggestion thatwe open up ‘‘low value (what?) conservation land’’ for mining is the same type of thinking Gerry Brownlee suggestedwe do a few years ago on Great Barrier Island and the Coromandel ( ACT wants to unwind climate, energy efforts, Sept 15).

In brief, we are hypocrites using products and exploiting materials from other countries.

It could be borne in mind thatmany products made today, using rare minerals, didn’t exist 50 years ago, and who can say overseas countries exploit their landscape to make them.

Our politicians need to get it in their heads that the purpose of conservation land is that it represents a very small part left of what our beautiful country used to be and never is it to be exploited by greedy humans thinking any part is low value.

Whatever products can be made from our conservation land, most of it eventually will end up as landfill. But left as is, the landwill forever earn more from tourists enjoying the beauty of it.

Don McKay, Petone