The Leader of the Liberal Democrat Opposition Group on Oldham Council, Councillor Howard Sykes MBE, has condemned the recent poor performance at Oldham’s new GM University Technical College as a “wholesale failure”.

Commenting Cllr Sykes said: “This result flies in the face of the reassurances given by the Council Leader and Cabinet Member for Education that Oldham’s exam results are supposedly improving following the publication of the Education Commission report and they are also a condemnation of this new type of college.”

“It beggars belief that everything has gone so wrong at this college.  Despite an investment of many millions of pounds in a new purpose-built building and new teaching staff, not one of the forty six students that were in the initial cohort achieved a Grade C in both English and Mathematics.”

“This means that they will all have to re-sit these key subjects and is a singular demonstration of this College’s abject failure in getting the basics right.”

“Our young people, as a very minimum, need to be able to read, write and do basic maths when they leave school.  What we need now in Oldham is stability, not new gimmicks like the University Technical College and Free Schools, models that have not only failed to produce results, but have failed our young people.”

“Those who ultimately suffer are the students who have chosen to study there and who now must feel badly let down.  I ask myself why the problems in performance were not spotted earlier and why no heads have so far rolled amongst the senior staff and the mangers of the College.”