4 minute read
Letters
‘College has let down students...’
MY grandson, along with all other apprentices at Kingston Maurward College, were recently informed, midacademic year, that the college was no longer going to be running apprenticeships.
All, including my grandson – who is on an arboriculture apprenticeship – were emailed out of the blue and given just two weeks’ notice that the college would no longer be providing any provision for apprenticeships, and they were being relocated to Sparsholt College - 64 miles away.
The college said: “The current operating climate, funding rates and inflationary pressures are making it financially unviable for us to continue to deliver apprenticeships.”
As a retired teacher, I find it appalling that Kingston Maurward took on apprentices just over three months ago, at the beginning academic year, when its funding for the year should have been in place, and yet now must cease all provision because it has run out of money!
How, before September, was it not aware of its overall financial situation?
It is incomprehensible that an educational establishment with a duty of care has treated its apprentices, some as young as 16, in such an off-hand, thoughtless manner. Particularly when so many of these young people will already have suffered a particularly difficult few years due to the pandemic.
The only help Kingston Maurward has given to some apprentices is to forward their details to Sparsholt College in the hope there will be enough spaces to accommodate them, and a bus timetable!
It could be argued that my grandson is lucky. He, fortunately, has a very supportive employer, which is doing its best to find a way to support its apprentices to complete their course. It recognises the importance of college tuition.
Kingston Maurward will argue that Sparsholt has agreed to fund a free bus for the students. The reality is this bus leaves Bournemouth – the starting point and 28 miles from Kingston Maurward – at 7am and takes over two hours to reach Sparsholt.
I am deeply concerned that many of the apprentices, particularly those living in the west of the county and those from low income families, will find it impossible to be in Bournemouth for 7am. How will they be supported?
Apart from the impact on the students’ lives, I don’t think this reflects well on the county! Hampshire, it seems, manages its funding to support an award-nominated college. Why isn’t this the case in Dorset? It’s heart-breaking to think that there will be no academic support in the county for future apprentices looking to go into agriculture and horticulturebased careers.
Also, where is the Government support for apprenticeships? How on earth is this supposed to encourage economic growth and ‘levelling up’?
MRS BOBBIE CHURCH via email Light debate
THE lady (Purbeck Gazette, 19 December) who says she likes the LED lights that have been installed on Bon Accord Road and other streets in Swanage has missed the point.
The issues are with the excessive colour temperature and the amount of light spill from these obsolete luminaires.
Replacement directional
One of the replacement LED lights in Swanage
LED fittings that put light only where it is needed and not through people’s windows are available.
They are far more economical than these lights, because they do not waste energy by lighting areas that should not be illuminated.
More than 50 per cent of the light from these LED bulbs is wasted as light pollution.
Dorset Council has claimed there is no scientific evidence of a health risk from this kind of lighting, but Public Health England issued advice in 2016 to use warm-white LED street lights ‘to avoid potential adverse effects on melatonin production in the evening’.
Melatonin is a potent defence against cancer, so having its production suppressed by exposure to blue-rich light at night enhances cancer risk.
The scientific evidence showing this is there, if people would be responsible enough to study the subject before commenting.
Pedestrians would be perfectly safe walking home under modern directional warm-white LED lighting, without the lights being intrusive or creating a health risk for every householder who has them installed in the street outside.
That is what I am calling for.
DR GAVIN RIDER via email Working titles
FOLLOWING on from David Prichard’s letter – Purbeck Gazette 19 December – about the Duke of Sussex, it is indeed bizarre that while spending much of their time publicly criticising the institution from which their titles derive – never, of course, the late Queen, whose last years they nevertheless didn’t scruple to blight – the Sussexes continue to use them, even whingeing that further titles haven’t been given to their children.
No doubt they are expecting an invitation to the Coronation, and will complain bitterly if they don’t get one.
Logic, consistency and emotional intelligence are not the Sussexes forte.
At least we can be grateful they aren’t Duke and Duchess of Dorset!
