F R I E N D S O F B I L S T O N C O M M U N I T Y C O L L E G E
30 Aug 2001
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Spokesperson: Dr.G.Barnsby 141 Henwood Rd. Wolverhampton WV6 8PJ
FRAUD BY WHOM?
The FRIENDS have always maintained that the closure of Bilston Community College (BCC) was the most blatant example of institutional racism that has occurred in Britain and when finally exposed would have far reaching effects on the struggle against institutional racism.
For Bilston Community College was the most important institution of ethnic minority education in Britain. It had an unprecedented 30% of its staff from ethnic minorities and with its system of educaton in temples, clubs, churches etc. allowed Black and ethnic minority people to determine both the education they received and where it took place. As a result its external teaching packages were taken by ethnic minority organisations through much of England and it was the fastest growing and largest provider of ethnic minority education in Britain.
But its policy of open access to all who asked for education and insistence that courses for the uneducated be financed at the same rate as courses for people with educational qualification was years ahead of its time and was bitterly opposed by the 'elitists' who ran education then, as now, and the Further Education Funding Council which controlled all colleges deliberately and vindictively engineered the closure of BCC.
Three main charges were made:
1. That the College was the most inefficient in the country. This could only be demonstrated by the blatant gerrymandering of sending an inspection team to the College after all its management spine and one third of its total staff had been sacked.
2. That the College had debts of 'over £10millions'. The ultimate necessity of making a budget for Wolverhampton College has now forced the revelation that the total debts of the two colleges, Bilston and Wulfrun, (the latter of which was allowed to take over BCC and become Wolverhampton College) was £5.8million, an amount which the thriving BCC could have absorbed.
3 That the management of Bilston College was engaged in fraudulent activity. This accusation was first raised in the Melia Report of March 1999 (which advised the closure of BCC) and ever since, on the pretext that an enquiry into improprieties was being undertaken by the Fraud Squad and the alternative views of the Friends could not be considered because the matter was on-going and thus sub judice, it has been open season ever since for the Further Education Funding Council, the media, and reactionaries in general to slander all who worked at Bilston Community College. All this must now end, however, for we have the following letter from the West Midlands Police:
So with all three of the main reasons for the closure of BCC having been proved false it is now necessary to consider all the implications of this institutionally racist action.
1. There was no iota of justification for considering there had been fraud at Bilston College. Police time has been deliberately wasted in suggesting such a thing and the fraudsters it would seem were the officials of the FEFC and their agents in Wolverhampton who used what they knew were baseless allegations to slander and close Bilston Community College.
These matters will be taken up with the police.
2. If there could be no justification for closing Bilston Community College its take-over by the new Wolverhampton College cannot be justified. . It was the takeover by a College with 9% ethnic minority staff of a multicultural College with 30% of ethnic minority staff which constituted the institutional racism. Wolverhampton College was therefore improperly set up. There must be a vote of no confidence in the present board of governors as institutionally racist and they should be replaced.
3. All others in Wolverhampton who actively collaborated with the FEFC in closing Bilston CC should be invited to admit to being institutionally racist. If they are employed at Wolverhampton College and in high office they must be moved from such positions.
4. Bilston Community College must be restored and given autonomy to resume community education in Bilston, under the ultimate reformed governorship of Wolverhampton College.
5. One of the most dangerous features of the Bilston affair has been the ability of the educational and political authorities to impose its own monolithic view of the situation and through a sort of 'reign of terror' maintain it. So that, in the case of Bilston, the Friends have been prevented from putting their views; those at the College who maintained a belief in community education have been removed, and attempts have even been made to gag the Friends' 82 year old Spokesperson who was forcible ejected from a a public consultation meeting of Wolverhampton College. Even progressive newspapers such as the Guardian have refused to report our activities and the same thing applies to the ethnic minority press.
6. The importance of Bilston Community College is not confined to educational matters in Wolverhampton. The closure of BCC was supported by numbers of local councillors and local authority staff who, like the FEFC refused to admit that there was a huge racial element to the closure of the College. There is a number of reasons for this. For instance some councillors thought that community education should not have begun in Bilston but in Wolverhampton; some were jealous of the rapid expansion of Bilston; one councillor said that he supported the closure of BCC because it was 'rotten to the core'; this absolutely staggered the Friends' Spokesperson, but began to make sense when he learned that this councillor had been chair of the governors at Wulfrun College. Under these circumstances it is no surprise to learn that of the 25 chairs of the leading committees of the newly reorganised committees Wolverhampton City Council 24 of them are white. Unrest among black and ethnic minority employees in the Civic Centre is rife as is discontent among students and in the health service. It will need Black & Ethnic Minority Empowerment Units in all public institutions employing more than 5% of such employees to empower ethnic minority employees, and the Bilston model is the only successful model available. We need also greater control of our MPS who work in our institutionally racist Parliament which produces the institutionally racist legislation by which all of us, including ethnic minority citizens and asylum seekers are governed.
7. Outside Wolverhampton this has been the last of the seven disastrous years of the rule of the undemocratic quango of the Further Education Funding Council which has controlled FE for the past years. Its undemocratic character has encouraged the methods that have disgraced its reign of 'consultation' which has seen dictation and the naming of numerous Colleges as 'failing' when the failure has been that of the FEFC. It has long been written off as a disastrous failure, its leading personnel have found no place in the Learning and Skills Councils which replace it, the illegalities of many of its actions, failure to reach its targets, and its inability to safeguard public funds have been important reasons to replace it. Yet the final report of the FEFC is a fantasy account of its 'highly successful' existence and final year together with paeans of praise for its Council only one of whom seems to have a black face.
We shall expect the Learning & Skills Council to criticise this travesty of the truth.
8. The criticism of the Further Education Funding Council apply also to its successor body the Learning and Skills Council whose Directors of Learning and and Council members appear also to be lacking ethnic minority members. The basic criticism of the FEFC that it was an undemocratic quango also applies to the Learning and Skills Council. Just as important is what multicultural curriculums are accepted by the L&SC for schools, colleges and universities. This and the ethnic breakdown of the personnel and students of these institutions, will largely determine how racism is combated. All of these things the Friends of Bilston Community College will vigorously pursue with the L&SC and we will wish that our criticisms and suggestions should be met in the spirit they are intended of fruitful collaboration in creating multicultural educational institutions in Britain and not, as with the FEFC, totalitarian insistence on crushing all opposition to is views.
9. Finally, we would remind the world that we are Wolverhampton, the town that suffered the ultimate indignity of harbouring Enoch Powell. It follows that if Wolverhampton sunk the lowest by being regarded as the racist capital of Britain, that any progress it makes is proportionately greater than progress made elsewhere. It now has the fifth largest University in the country with the largest intake of working class students, the largest intake of ethnic minority students and one of the largest intakes of local ethnic minority students. The basis of the very considerable progress Wolverhampton has made in creating a multiracial society has been made by the creation of the oldest, most representative and influential Race Equality Council in Britain. On this rock was built by a progressive, anti-racist local Council the first Community College in the country dedicated to equal education expenditure on those with no educational qualifications as for those with. A triumvirate was formed by the acceptance of the police that they were institutionally racist and through the proposals of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Wolverhampton police have attempted to remedy this. It is the quarterly meeting of Wolverhampton's WREC, its City Council leaders and Police chiefs which helps ensure the peace in Wolverhampton, and pride in the achievements of our multicultural community. This is achieved by the understanding that no important decision shall be made taken in Wolverhampton until it has been put to and approved by the leaders of the Black and ethnic communities. '
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