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Bulletin No. 2. Aug 99

BILSTONGATE - How the Dirty Tricks Department of the Further Education Funding Council closed Bilston Community College.

THE STORY SO FAR

Bilston Community College (BCC) was always a thorn in the side of financing authorities because it consistently championed equal expenditure for those without educational qualifications as those with such qualifications. This gave parity of treatment to the most disadvantaged members of such deprived communities as Bilston many of whom are from ethnic minority communities.

Because of criticisms of BCC mostly imaginary but some real the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) determined to close the College on the following grounds:
  1. BCC promoted an image of itself as a uniquely innovative world leader in community education.
  2. BCC was riddled with debts.
  3. BCC was inefficient.
FRIENDS hold that the first reason is subjective and a disgraceful excuse for closing BCC. The second reason given is not true. The basic debt of £3.5 million arose from arbitrarily depriving BCC of 20% of its income in 1997/8 when the average cut of other Colleges was 4%. The third charge of inefficiency could only be made by a FEFC inspection team after sacking the principal, his main managerial officers, and one third of the College staff.

ACTION TAKEN

THE FRIENDS have taken the following action since those reported in our BULLETIN of July:
  1. Asked David Blunkett to defer closure of BCC until the implications of race discrimination and institutional racism can be considered.
  2. Called for an independent enquiry into the actions of the FEFC in relation to BCC.
  3. Called for a review of the finances of BCC by the National Audit Office particularly regarding the repeated imputed suggestions by the FEFC of criminal misuse of public funds at BCC.
WHAT IS COMMUNITY EDUCATION??

Britain has lived through a long period of widening differences between the rich and the poor. New Labour has declared that it will end this disadvantage. An important tool in achieving this will be Community Education. Bilston was the most important College in Britain in developing Community Education.

Community Education requires that the whole Community be educated. This means reaching out to the large section of the public which left school without any qualifications many of whom detested education and sympathise with their own offspring who likewise are at odds with the educational system. Such disadvantaged people will not enter a school or College at any price. Their education must take place in the community through its clubs and institutions, places of employment and unemployment and churches, temples and mosques. This is what BCC did better than any other College.

Community Education does not keep school or College hours. It must take place across traditional school vacations and at week-ends.
BCC was a pioneer of this 'open all hours', policy but, not surprisingly, fell foul of the lecturers' trade union NATFHE. The breach was never completely healed and NATFHE became whistle blowers supporting the closure of the College. The present attitude of the union as expressed in a letter from its General Secretary, Paul Mackney, to the FRIENDS states, 'There were many brilliant things done at Bilston, but there were equally fatal flaws. The latter have made it difficult to sustain the battle for the former.' We believe that NATFHE have under estimated the race discrimination and institutional racism implications of their decision.

Community Education transcends the borders of schools and Colleges. If an employer negotiates a training programme with a College it wants that programme for all its branches wherever they are geographically. For this reason both the previous Tory government and this government have had to make it clear that Colleges cannot be confined to their own local catchment areas. By 1996 Bilston had about 50,000 (mostly part-time) students many without previous educational qualifications. The greatest success, however, was with ethnic minority students whose BCC training programmes were taken by temples not only in Bilston but in the Black Country and further afield at Leicester and elsewhere.

Community Education is international. With our main local ethnic minorities from Asia and the Caribbean it would be strange if there were no two-way educational contact with at least these areas. World wide web-sites will speed up this process. Monies for educational purposes will also increasingly be available through United Nations and European Community sources. BCC has been particularly adept at tapping into these funds.

HOW DID THE FEFC PROPOSE CLOSING BCC?
The Melia Report proposed the dissolution of both BCC and Wulfrun College and the formation of a Wolverhampton College. It also stipulated a complete obliteration of all forms of Community Education.

WHAT SOLUTION HAS BEEN ADOPTED?
Even these scandalous proposals have been fundamentally altered by the take-over of BCC by Wulfrun, the appointment of the present principal of Wulfrun College to the new college and the acceptance of the existing Boards of Governors of both BCC and Wulfrun. Thus all important decisions have already been made and the proposed 'consultation' with the public in the autumn will be a sham.
STOP PRESS
We have just learned that Baroness Blackstone, acting on behalf of David Blunkett has announced that Bilston Community College will be dissolved and its property rights and liabilities transferred in part to Wulfrun College and in part to the Further Education Funding Council.
FRIENDS OF BILSTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE will now enter a complaint to the Commission for Racial Equality that in closing Bilston Community College the FEFC acted deliberately, unnecessarily and vindictively and in so doing was guilty of racial discrimination and institutional racism.
THE FRIENDS consist of some of those victimised at BCC, some still  at The College but liable to be victimised and other interested persons. Their Spokesperson is Dr. George Barnsby who can be contacted at 2 Clarence Rd. Wolverhampton WV1 4HZ.