The principal of Kirklees College has attacked David Cameron over “painful” cuts to the institution’s budget, which amount to a whopping £450,000.
Peter McCann wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister after the government slashed adult funding for English as a second language (Esol) provision and other adult skills training for the forthcoming academic year.
It is another blow to the college, attended by around 18,000 students from across the area, which has already had to grapple with more than £2m worth of cuts since the beginning of 2014.
There are concerns that this latest development will have a significant impact on integration between communities, at a time when the area when the area has fallen under the national spotlight after two local teenagers fled to Syria to join ISIS earlier this year.
Speaking to the Reporter Series this week, Mr McCann said that the announcement was a particular surprise given that on the same day the college received the news David Cameron made a speech on the importance of tackling extremism: “We (Kirklees) have had a problem in that we’ve become one of the most high profile places in this particular area and the college has been praised publicly by the Home Office for our work in integration,” he said.
Kirklees College has several campuses across areas including Dewsbury and Batley and currently employs more than 1,000 staff. However, while no courses will be completely eradicated as a result of the cuts, no guarantees have been offered about the possibility of redundancies.
In his letter, Mr McCann also accused the Prime Minister of showing a “lack of respect” towards the skills sector and criticised him for saddling the financial education sector with what he called a “disproportionate” financial burden.
“To achieve the previous reductions and agree a budget that the governing body has been able to approve has required another painful and difficult process,” he wrote.