Excluded student prepares to sue

A student on Glasgow Caledonian University Company's troubled counselling course is poised to sue after being excluded from its final stages.

Two students on the certificate course, Winifred Scott and Audrey Sutherland, refused to pay the final instalment of their fees because they were unhappy about changes after tutors were replaced midway through the course.

Mrs Scott, a volunteer with a breast cancer group, said she had withheld about Pounds 430 of the total Pounds 885 fee on legal advice because she wanted more information about the course content. She had understood the course would involve practical work which had not been covered, and was anxious to establish exactly what was going to be taught in the last term.

"But my lawyer got a fax to say if I did try to go into the building, I would be refused admission. I now fully intend to sue them for the money back."

Mrs Sutherland, whose case has been taken up by a Glasgow branch of the Citizens Advice Bureau, said she had asked for the final term's fees to be waived since the course title had changed midway through the year, and topics she had believed would be covered, such as counselling for bereavement, and addiction were not addressed.

"The course was more on personal human awareness than counselling," she said. She stressed that she had not withdrawn from the course, but had withheld the fees in a bid to start negotiations with the university company.

"I felt like a naughty schoolchild when I was excluded," she said. "I'm not looking for compensation. All I want is my Pounds 605 back."

A spokeswoman for Glasgow Caledonian University Company, a wholly-owned trading arm of the university, said: "Naturally we would not wish to comment any further at this stage."