Dundee confirms course cut

Dundee University's court has backed a senate decision to axe undergraduate teaching in education despite strong lobbying by students.

The popular joint MA course in educational studies was launched by the university's centre for continuing education in 1991 in the hope that it would eventually win support for extra funded student places from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council.

But this prospect has been dashed by the Government policy shift from student expansion to consolidation.

Dundee's senate voted by 47 to 30 to phase out the course from next session after hearing that the programme has had to be partially supported from the social science budget, causing financial difficulties in core social science disciplines.

While there are around 120 first-year entrants to the education course and 50 second-year students, the numbers going into the honours course have been capped at 20.

Students, backed by a 1,200-signature petition, argued that the closure proposal from the faculty of arts and social sciences was based on a report which contained "errors and omissions".

The department of educational studies is not facing closure, and will continue postgraduate work.