Access tutors’ problems from delayed approvals

Press, 16 September 1987, Page 22

Access tutors’ problems from delayed approvals

Some Access pro, grammes are given approval so late that tutors do not know whether they still have a job the next week, the Christchurch Polytechnic Council has told.

A late decision on whether the course should run, sometimes only a week before the course was due to start, also made it very difficult for tutors to select suitable applicants in such a short time.

The council was discussing problems with Access courses after accepting resignations from two tutors. Lack of tenure for people providing Access

courses was a real problem, and the polytechnic’s associate director, Dr Graham Logan. At the polytechnic, the problem particularly affects 40 or 50 people in the special programmes department. Some are part-time employees. Mr Frank Crothall, the chairman of R.E.A.C., which administers the programmes, said last evening that the problems were "history.” “We have had problems, especially in taking over some of the T.A.P. programmes." However, all training providers had been told that all requests for pro-

grammes must be lodged at least eight weeks before courses began, and this, should reduce the problems.

Mr Corthall said that some training providers did: not like having to tender for a particular course.

Training providers’ plans from March next year should be submitted by the end of October, he said.

It would not be possible for R.E.A.C. to say precisely which courses would be acepted, because the Government would not announce the Budget until next year, Mr Crothall said.