Cloisters February 2007

Welcome to Cloisters.

This month, we have some sad news of the ever-shrinking world of 'non-vocational' education. An innovative project in setting up a multi-collegiate college in the rural southwest of Scotland has hit funding trouble. Formed in 1999, the Crichton development transformed the old grounds of the Crichton Royal Hospital into a place of higher education, with contributions from the University of Paisley (computing and business degrees), Bell College (nurse training) and the University of Glasgow (a liberal arts degree and some postgraduate courses). A fourth partner, Dumfries and Galloway College, is joining the campus next year, adding the further education layer to the institution.

However, problems have arisen and a three-way argument has developed between the Scottish Funding Council (which distributes Scottish Executive funds to further and higher education), University of Glasgow and the Crichton College (Glasgow's part of the Crichton development). Apparently there is a shortfall of £800,000 per year in the Crichton College budget and the University's solution is to close it down.

Already protests have been heard all over Dumfries, Glasgow and Edinburgh, with calls for the Scottish Executive to step in and save this unique project. If it does close, it will be a great pity as the last non-vocational educational opportunities at this level will then be gone from the whole region.

Sad times for adult education.

On a more positive note, the New Curiosity Shop College of Online Learning is increasing its course catalogue and we have news from Arthur this month of the next batch to come on stream. Noel will also reveal something about our learning engine, Moodle.

We also have winners in our bumper Paul's Puzzle festive extravaganza. They are Steve Bray and Tom Griffith - they are the proud receivers of vouchers towards the cost of courses of their choice.

In keeping with our ongoing development of Cloisters, we have a brace of feature articles for you this month. We continue with Margaret Legum's series on the New Economics and a contribution from our staff astronomer, yours truly.

So don't let the utilitarians get you down. Get out and learn something for fun. If they've taken away your local non-vocational institution, remember that you can always join us on line at the NCS College of Online Learning.

Mark Toner

February 2007