Adult College Course Cuts

12.28.23pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 27th Feb 2006

Further to last week's comments on the adult education funding crisis, students are protesting over the sudden cancellation of courses because of failure to recruit 14 students per class.

MP Vincent Cable said: "we are now seeing the fallout from the squeeze on adult education funding which the adult college has been warning of and which I anticipated in a debate in parliament last June".

"The underlying problem is that the government has made a political decision to channel resources to 16 to 18 year olds and to narrowly vocational further education. The idea of continuing education; of helping older people to learn new things; and learning for its own sake: these appear to have disappeared from the government's agenda. As a consequence, hundreds of local people are having valued stimulating courses, which they are happy to pay for, snatched away from them"