UEA leaves nurses stranded

The EYPS is a highly regarded professional course that trains nursery staff for the community.

The UEA course in particular provided fantastic student resources and was the single provider of EYPS in Norfolk.

Eradicating the course will mean a shortage of professionally trained nursery staff in Norfolk from 2013.

UEA Dean of Social Sciences Neil Ward says declining student demand has left an unviable gap in financial provision for the course.

Yet an insider told us that the UEA hasn't actively advertised for students and that staff have been discouraged, forbidden perhaps, from applying for additional available funding.

Teaching staff will now be made redundant, current students left without consistency of teachers for the remainder of their course, and the medium- to long-term welfare of young children put into jeopardy.

Staff have also been positively discouraged from talking to the press.

At best, there's been an acute breakdown in communication and transparency from UEA management and at worst a sinister backdoor operation to remove EYPS provision from the agenda without any wider dialogue with staff and community.

It seems the suits have, for now, imposed their myopic will on the community.

Is this what they meant when they talked about the Big Society? Probably.

It's clear if we don't keep tabs on these suits and hacks they'll cowardly distort the entire character of the nation's inclusive people-first education system.

Jo Cook

Norwich