Adult learners face £9,000 college debts
w2671a030 Free swimming petition - Lightwaves. Pricilla Whisker and Mary Creagh.
ADULTS who want to retrain at Wakefield College will now face thousands of pounds of debt.
Students aged over 24 will no longer receive government funding to pay for A-level, BTEC and NVQ courses from 2013-14, ministers announced this week.
The government will also end support for out-of-work people studying their first GSCE-equivalent vocational course.
Instead, a system of loans will see adult learners borrow up to £9,000 to pay for training courses including plumbing, construction and IT, as £1.1bn is cut from the further education budget.
Wakefield MP Mary Creagh said the move would put people off going back into education.
She said: “How are people who are out of work going to feel confident about taking out a loan to pay for college?
“At the moment older students pay a fee of about £700 but this will go up to £9,000 even before they go to university. I think this is just another example of how this government has no plan for jobs and growth.”
Skills minister John Hayes defended the move, saying students who gain the qualifications could earn £100,000 more during their lifetime.
The government has also pledged to create 75,000 more adult apprenticeships by 2014-15.
Mr Hayes said: “The acquisition of skills enables people to progress in learning and work and delivers social benefits too.
“I want to see the development of a culture of learning with individuals and employers driving forward the skills system and contributing to the learning they receive.”
Wakefield College was contacted by the Express but no-one was available comment.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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Comments
There are 3 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
louiskasatkin
Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 10:56 AMThe way out of this should they ,shouldn't they pay is quite simple,I'm surprised no-one's thought about it.Why doesn't the party opposed to the government's policies put forward their own proposals at a general election?Oh,they already have ,earlier this year.And it took them all of 13 interminably miserable years of wielding absolute power to get where they are now, with a bigger cartload of broken promises,grubby betrayals of the peoples'trust and colossal mismanagement of the economy than even Steptoe&son could ever hope to palm off onto an suspecting public.Outrage and opposition to Coalition policies?you've got to be joking;may be that would be a better career option for most of the former government,third rate stand-up comedians trying desperately to sound relevant;as if.
Phil Wakefield
Friday, November 26, 2010 at 01:06 PM9 grand for an A level? Are you sure about your facts Wakefield Express, you can get a degree for that at a decent university.
Phil Wakefield
Friday, November 26, 2010 at 01:06 PM9 grand for an A level? Are you sure about your facts Wakefield Express, you can get a degree for that at a decent university.
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