School of Horticulture closed

Spoke to my mate who I was at college with for the first time for ages,was shocked to learn it has closed down,and the school of Floristry upstairs.

Can anyone tell me what good closing down two colleges that trained people for careers will do ?

The school of Horticulture has a proud history and I was so happy to be a part of it.

Spent two wonderful years there.

Flippin mad I am.

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/cs/Satellit...apper%2FWrapper

The trouble is Denise that many people think that if a college isn't called a university , it is not much use. Therefore they tend to either convert them to/ absorb them by a university , or else close them . If the first happens (as occurred at Reading College who were absorbed by "Thames Valley university") then you lose a good college and end up with a mediocre university with a useless reputation giving out qualifications that are worth as much as a politician's promise. If the second happens you have nothing, but the council have a nice juicy property to sell to fund their expenses.

Denise

I agree with Mike, this is the reason why universities are doing so many courses that are little to do with the reasons the were founded for. Denise I'm not belittling your chosen field but Horticulture is not what I would call a university subject. Botany maybe even agriculture but horticulture should remain the domain of the College. All they are doing it putting something else outside the reach of the ordinary man or woman on the street.

Phil

Well you can of course attend uni for Horticulture related subjects but that is another story.

College as you say is unique,especially Kings Heath as it had all the facilities needed.

You had such good practical facilities where you could learn your craft.

Many people paid for their courses and I was so lucky as I had not studied to that level before so the Government paid for mine.

Obviously Mr Cameron has decided that Education is not a priority and as such pulled the plug on it all so many people will suffer for it......our young people will have nothing.

You have made the point exactly Denise. College, for whatever subject, is where you learn your craft practically, so that you can do the job, whether it be horticulture or chemistry (which i know more about). In my experience at cadburys, where someone was employed practically in the lab often the best work on the bench was done by those who were at "tech" doing HNC, HND. This might not be quite so true nowadays in my field , where everything is supposedly carried out in the machine on the bench (if it doesn't go wrong), but I would think it would still be true in agricultural/horticultural subjects
Mike

Denise

Mr Cameron has not decided that education is not a priority. He has decided that it is only a priority for those that can afford it. With tuition fees at £9K per annum and added to that living expenses. There will be no applicants from from the lower income families, it will be a return to the glorious days of yore for the Tory party when the rich ruled from the backs of the downtrodden.

Phil

Mike and Phil,

I have seen courses advertised by the RHS for postal courses..to me this is wrong.There are so many things in Hort that you need to do hands on so to speak.I think we covered every bit of that park doing various tasks including preparing the ground and planting and staking a tree,this sticks in my mind as the day we did this an outside assessor come to oberve and it was bucketing down all day.My tree planting partner and I were digging away in the pouring rain and making hardly any headway as the ground was so full of roots already,in the end the poor bloke got into the hole with us to speed it up.We were all like drowned rats.

My Tutor was amazed as he had never had anything like that happen before..happy days.

We did obviously do a lot of classroom work but you need much more.

What has gone from there will be hard to replace.

I am going to write to the council to complain about it...not that they will be bothered but will still do so.

Sad shame about your School Den, I think there is a lot more of this kind of thing to come unfortunateley.

The question is will these losses be restored when times are better?
Are better times ahead?
VM

What makes me mad is we can conjure up seven billion for Ireland .

Thought we were supposed to be broke ??

Is that broke or broken?
I know we must be a bit cracked.