Calls to donate £9m building to college

FAILED . . . The GM University Technical College on Middleton Road

OLDHAM College should be given the £9million building which houses Oldham's failed technical school.

The GM University Technical College, a new type of school combining technical and academic education, is to closed in the summer just three years after it opened.

None of its pupils got at least a C grade in both English and maths in last year's GCSEs.

Expensive

It had only 60 pupils when the closure was announced last month, dramatically short of its 600 capacity, and it is not financially viable.

The GM was built in Middleton Road on land owned by and next to Oldham College, but is a separate institution.

Lib Dem opposition leader Councillor Howard Sykes described it as an expensive white elephant and called on the the council to ask the Department for Education to give the government-funded building to Oldham College.

He said the college was "crying out" for new buildings, and added: "At least then we will see something come out of this mess that will be of long-term benefit to the students of this borough, and a small vindication for the waste of over £9 million pounds."

Councillor Sykes was supported by council leader Councillor Jean Stretton who said the failure of The GM was the result of the fragmentation of the school system. She said: "We are left, as a local authority, with the responsibility that people get a proper education. But increasingly the control over the institutions that are there to deliver that is being wrenched away from us.

"It is an absolute sin and a shame and a crime that not a single young people who graduated from that institution got the qualifications that they need because that will potentially blight their lives for ever.

"I agree that the right thing will be for that building to be transferred to Oldham College at no cost."