Dismay as Fife College ends automative course

There will be no full-time courses available after the end of the current academic year, with the entire department closing for good in 2019.

Three staff will lose their jobs this summer with eight in total understood to be under threat.

A college spokesman said: “The reducing number of appropriately qualified students applying for automotive programmes, the limited opportunities available to progress into local full-time employment within the automotive industry and the investment required to continue to offer the high quality learning experience provided by other training providers were among the factors that led to the final decision being made.”

But one of the current students Dawnah Selfridge (28) said she hoped a “compromise” could be reached.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I was hoping to do the second year because, as I’m a bit older, I feel as though I need a bit more experience before I look for an apprenticeship.”

An EIS spokesman said that they would fight to have the decision overturned.

“Further education is about serving the local community and if we lose we lose this then we lose that opportunity. It would be wrong to take this department away.”