£6.5m Rwandan deal put on hold buy Blackburn College (From Blackburn Citizen)

Instead of sending staff out on a jolly to anywhere you can think of why not start teaching proper courses to people in the UK.

No one is bothered about staffing the Winter Olympics or the convenient exchange trips you have set up.

Stop filling students heads with ideas about pointless courses and get back to basics!

It's little wonder the country is in the state it is?

And there you have it: The global education model. When educationalists stoop to the level of businessmen there's not much hope for the future.
When Blair said, 'education, education, education,' he really meant, 'money money, money'.

Is it any wonder people in this country are bitter? The insensitivity of this is unbelievable. We need to educate our own people first. We have wasted millions on Africa to no avail. we need to decide what we want, either a good education system funded by ourselves or a sell out to the highest bidder to the detriment of our own future.

I can smell a few large brown envelopes being passed around here.
You cannot name one African country which does not have a corrupt government.
To be corrupt is their way of life.

The College is a public institution which has seen major funding cuts like all others in the last few years. It is a non profit making organisation: i.e. every penny of the profits for these deals is ploughed back into education here, in Blackburn for local students. What would you prefer? To raise the cost of University programmes at the College to the maximum £9,000 and price even more students who want a University education out of the market? To shrink the College as its funding from central govt shrinks so that yes, even less local students get the opportunity to further their education?
Yes, the College has to act like a business these days. That is because of the way funding for education in this country has changed and been cut. If it wants to survive and you want a College of any sort in this town, it has to find other ways to bring in the income.
People on these threads spend all their time complaining about how the tax payer has to pay for this, that and the other, yet when an organisation finds a different way to raise funds, that is also wrong as they are money grabbing, being bribed and losing sight of what should be their primary focus. Does anyone else find this somewhat hypocritical? You can't have it both ways!!

ladysal wrote:
The College is a public institution which has seen major funding cuts like all others in the last few years. It is a non profit making organisation: i.e. every penny of the profits for these deals is ploughed back into education here, in Blackburn for local students. What would you prefer? To raise the cost of University programmes at the College to the maximum £9,000 and price even more students who want a University education out of the market? To shrink the College as its funding from central govt shrinks so that yes, even less local students get the opportunity to further their education?
Yes, the College has to act like a business these days. That is because of the way funding for education in this country has changed and been cut. If it wants to survive and you want a College of any sort in this town, it has to find other ways to bring in the income.
People on these threads spend all their time complaining about how the tax payer has to pay for this, that and the other, yet when an organisation finds a different way to raise funds, that is also wrong as they are money grabbing, being bribed and losing sight of what should be their primary focus. Does anyone else find this somewhat hypocritical? You can't have it both ways!!

You are an extremely gullible person. If you consider the genocide of one million people to be acceptable, then you must consider that Hitler killed 6 million Jews to help the country with a shortage of food?

You are dealing with,, as stated, a country with a unstable polictical situation and if you did some research maybe on the BBC website you would find details of a government which is best avoided.
I have no objection to Blackburn College entering the world of business and trying to fetch extra money to Blackburn. Indeed this makes sound commercial sense. But please look at other countries maybe in Europe, or the USA which would be more acceptable governments to deal with.
Also from past experience some countries do not pay at the end of the contract,, so who would then pick up the bill?

ladysal wrote:
The College is a public institution which has seen major funding cuts like all others in the last few years. It is a non profit making organisation: i.e. every penny of the profits for these deals is ploughed back into education here, in Blackburn for local students. What would you prefer? To raise the cost of University programmes at the College to the maximum £9,000 and price even more students who want a University education out of the market? To shrink the College as its funding from central govt shrinks so that yes, even less local students get the opportunity to further their education?
Yes, the College has to act like a business these days. That is because of the way funding for education in this country has changed and been cut. If it wants to survive and you want a College of any sort in this town, it has to find other ways to bring in the income.
People on these threads spend all their time complaining about how the tax payer has to pay for this, that and the other, yet when an organisation finds a different way to raise funds, that is also wrong as they are money grabbing, being bribed and losing sight of what should be their primary focus. Does anyone else find this somewhat hypocritical? You can't have it both ways!!

So all they are interested in is funding their own existence then?

Start teaching usefull subjects such as engineering and manufacturing based or trade based subjects rather than all the non courses that colleges spew out these days.

Link in with business to sponsor apprentices rather than deal with the devil.

TONY WALES wrote:

ladysal wrote:
The College is a public institution which has seen major funding cuts like all others in the last few years. It is a non profit making organisation: i.e. every penny of the profits for these deals is ploughed back into education here, in Blackburn for local students. What would you prefer? To raise the cost of University programmes at the College to the maximum £9,000 and price even more students who want a University education out of the market? To shrink the College as its funding from central govt shrinks so that yes, even less local students get the opportunity to further their education?
Yes, the College has to act like a business these days. That is because of the way funding for education in this country has changed and been cut. If it wants to survive and you want a College of any sort in this town, it has to find other ways to bring in the income.
People on these threads spend all their time complaining about how the tax payer has to pay for this, that and the other, yet when an organisation finds a different way to raise funds, that is also wrong as they are money grabbing, being bribed and losing sight of what should be their primary focus. Does anyone else find this somewhat hypocritical? You can't have it both ways!!

You are an extremely gullible person. If you consider the genocide of one million people to be acceptable, then you must consider that Hitler killed 6 million Jews to help the country with a shortage of food?

You are dealing with,, as stated, a country with a unstable polictical situation and if you did some research maybe on the BBC website you would find details of a government which is best avoided.
I have no objection to Blackburn College entering the world of business and trying to fetch extra money to Blackburn. Indeed this makes sound commercial sense. But please look at other countries maybe in Europe, or the USA which would be more acceptable governments to deal with.
Also from past experience some countries do not pay at the end of the contract,, so who would then pick up the bill?

At what point did I say that working with Rwanda specifically was a good idea? I was offering generalised comments on the College's international strategy: the article itself refers to Russia and the people above to whom I was resonding were trashing the idea of the College looking overseas, NOT the idea of working with Rwanda.

Manuel: have you ever looked at a College prospectus? You know that huge building currently under construction next to the University Centre? Its the new STEM building, specifically designed to provide facilities for Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics programmes.