Three colleges to lose nursery care
Three campus nurseries are shutting this summer, with colleges claiming that students can find childcare elsewhere.
More than 150 protesters marched through Oxford on 19 May as Abingdon and Witney College prepared to begin a two-year campus redevelopment. The private Abacus Nursery provided nearly half of its places to students at a discount in return for free rent.
Abacus deputy manager Eileen Tyrell said, 'You can't walk out of this job without a fight, so we contacted the media and organised the march.
'They finally told us, you have to go on 4 July.'
Steve Billcliffe, the college's director of development, said, 'We need the space that the nursery takes up for temporary classrooms during the new build. If we could get funding from the Learning & Skills Council we would take out a bank loan to build a nursery.
'We are confident the market will provide sufficient space,' he added.
Wiltshire College in Salisbury released a statement this month announcing its 'reluctant decision' to close Little Legs Nursery in July. The college said there had been a decline in local people and students using the provision, and combined with increased competition from new local nurseries, this meant the nursery was not covering its costs.
Middlesbrough College in Teesside will shut its two on-site nurseries this year after reassessment revealed spiralling costs.
Principal John Hogg said, 'Over the last five or six years we've found it difficult to fill places. It's happened since a lot more registered nurseries have sprung up. We're moving four campuses to one and at first we set aside space for a nursery, but then realised they were costing us about £90,000 a year.'
But John Woodward, chief executive of Busy Bees, which runs four college and university nurseries, said, 'It's not a luxury. It's an important part of people's access to education, if we're really committed to equal opportunity.
'You need someone who's going to champion the nursery. One big problem is the term-time-only demand, so a mixture of students, staff and commercial users is the best chance of making it work.'
The National Union of Students' vice-president for welfare, Ama Uzowuru, said, 'Closing nursery facilities at educational institutions runs in direct contrast to the Government's stated aim of encouraging more mature students back into education. These retrograde steps will mean that educational opportunities are further restricted.'
Jessica Lay, whose four-year-old son attends Abacus Nursery, won Student of the Year 2005 during her final year of A-levels. 'I can honestly say I would not have received the award without Abacus Nursery,' she said. 'I wouldn't even have been able to stay on in college. It was amazing to be able to breastfeed at college and run back if I needed to.
'When I started I couldn't afford a car and many young parents wouldn't either, so it's quite a vulnerable part of the population that will miss out. And other mothers looking around have been saying it is difficult to find a nursery offering full-time places.'
