THE head of Warrington's Collegiate Institute has hit out at a former lecturer's claims that the college bumps up students' grades to improve their pass rate as "totally untrue".

Former media studies lecturer Rob Chapman spoke out in a national paper on Sunday, saying that the Collegiate let students who could not properly read or write pass courses, some with marks as low as 25 per cent.

He gave examples of students' work, some with spelling mistakes once every three words, which he said had been passed by tutors.

Mr Chapman said that his claims about the Manchester University validated college proved a decline in general education standards.

But College principal, Hilary Tucker, has refuted all his claims. "The allegations are so completely untrue I don't know where to begin," said Mrs Tucker. "I have not even seen any evidence to back up anything he has said.

"But I can categorically state that all our pupils have already passed a nationally recognised standard such as A levels before they even arrive here. This would be impossible if they could not read or write properly.

"Occasionally we may take on a student who has a learning difficulty like dyslexia, we would know about their problem beforehand and mark their work accordingly. But we would be talking about perhaps one or two students in an entire year's intake of around 370."

The college is consulting legal representatives at the moment over their position on Mr Chapman's claims.

Mrs Tucker said that the idea of the Collegiate passing students to keep the money coming in did not hold water either. "We have five or six applications for every place we offer," she said. "There is a limit to the number of students we can take. We can't just keep on taking on more and more students to make more and more money.

"If a student has not made the grade we fail them or make them re-take the year. That way we are not wasting public money, or the student's time. I cannot begin to say how incensed I am about all this."

She added that all exams are marked by two members of staff. In many instances, external and independent examiners are brought in. "I wouldn't want to pass a student who is no good. The reason why we have such a good reputation within the media industry is because our students are of such high quality," said Mrs Tucker.

Colleagues of Mr Chapman say he saw himself as a media professional, and a "bit of a personality", who was after a full time job in the media. He had been writing for a music magazine, and one lecturer said: "The suggestion to me is that the article was a way of building his career."

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