Cancellation blues

Birmingham University has been accused of neglecting students on a condemned course in order to focus on more academically prestigious areas. The university announced last year that it was scrapping its community, play and youth course. Now it has been accused of failing the 110 students still on the course. Dave Bowen, a final-year student, said the number of lecturers had fallen from seven to three, and a quarter of all lectures in the first five weeks of the term had been cancelled. A spokeswoman said Birmingham remained committed to the students, and said lectures had been cancelled after one visiting lecturer resigned and another was involved in a car accident. She added: "Action is in place to replace the missed lectures, which has involved securing an additional 40 hours of visiting lecturer time since the issues in November."