Government stops private colleges taking on new students

David Willetts, minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Photograph: David Cheskin/PA

Personal schools in England have been thrown into chaos right after the government acted to cease half from recruiting any much more college students from Britain and the EU to study higher national diplomas and certificates.

A sudden intervention from the Division for Business has meant that in the past ten days colleges educating 1000′s of students on courses this kind of as organization finance, hospitality management and IT management are no longer in a position to recruit any a lot more this academic yr.

Sally Hunt, basic secretary of the UCU, which represents lecturers and academic employees, explained her union had “specifically warned” ministers about recruitment at the colleges and added the department had acquired its sums “so spectacularly wrong” and that the predicament had grow to be “embarrassing”.

In the past 10 days it has emerged that the department’s budget for supplying pupil loans and grants was overspent by £80m in 2012/13 – and that ministers have been taking into consideration cuts to make sure that the spending budget balanced in future years.

The Division for Company has now suspended recruitment to HND and HNC programs at 22 personal larger training schools and chains.

With college students at alternative suppliers accessing loans and grants now considered to quantity practically 40 000, the department has been forced by budget pressures to reverse its policy of encouraging rapid growth in the larger education sector.

In all, the division has halted 200 courses from becoming taught to new college students at the schools. 1 hundred of the programs are provided by London College UCK, primarily based in Notting Hill Gate. The department accepted these programs in 2011/12, taking just four days to deal with the application paperwork.

The colleges exactly where pupil recruitment has successfully been suspended by the curtailing of economic support are virtually exclusively positioned in London and the south-east.

The record of suspended schools involves London School of Company and Finance (LSBF), which won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2013. The suspension also impacts its Birmingham and Manchester campuses.

David Blunkett, Labour MP and former education secretary, receives £40,000 annually from LSBF for a “going to lecturer” position and the college’s site attributes pictures of large profile celebrities this kind of as Richard Branson, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.

But despite the influence on the government department’s budget, some of the affected colleges nevertheless appeared satisfied to accept the predicament. A spokesman for LSBF mentioned: “We are pleased to have witnessed a sustainable growth in demand for HND programmes.”

He extra its courses “have been a excellent achievement” and the school was “hopeful that, following its assessment, [the business division] will proceed to fund HND and HNC programmes”. LSBF also has the very same owners as St Patrick’s University Worldwide, yet another college affected by the suspension.

“These programs are widely recognised, which includes by David Willetts, as effectively-respected and reputable qualifications,” the college added.

A division spokesperson stated that HNDs and HNCs were “well respected qualifications”.

The department explained: “Get up is developing quickly and we’re taking measures to control this growth inside of our budgets. We have instructed the suppliers that are increasing most rapidly to cease recruiting students to these courses for this year.”

In an exchange of letters witnessed by the Guardian, Willetts dismissed fears from the head of University School Union (UCU) that a lack of controls on student recruitment in the private schools sector would trigger budget troubles.

UCU basic secretary Sally Hunt wrote to Willetts in the spring of 2012 saying “UCU finds it unacceptable that … personal [schools] working programs designated for public support do not have to observe any controls on the amount of college students they recruit.”

In a reply Willetts explained that her worries had been “mentioned” but government programs to assistance the sector to help it compete with public universities would carry on.

Government stops private colleges taking on new students