The government has withdrawn funding for students on level three and four further education courses.
I work in an adult education college and in my department there are a number of level three courses. These courses used to have government funding that learners were not aware of.
For example, for a level three course that costs a student £1,000, the college would get £2,000 funding from the government.
For the academic year 2013-14 and beyond, this has been replaced with a loan (ie personal debt for the student).
To make matters worse, it is not possible to get another loan for the same level course in the future.
As a result of the sudden withdrawal of funding, our potential students have been put off by what looks like a tripling of our fees.
Our department has been ruined and tutors will be made redundant from courses next year. My job is not under threat in this way, but I may be demoted and it would be wise for me to look into moving elsewhere (I have a family to support) as I do not know what will happen next year.
Most of the courses with this sort of funding enable people to have a career change or to get off benefits, or reduce their dependence on benefits.
Even if work does not result from the course, it is a social good to educate and get people out of the house and into a place where they will have opportunities.
I haven’t seen anything about this in the news. I have thought about writing to my local Labour MP about it. The only problem is that this is exactly the kind of thing that Labour would introduce!
