Notices are going up around the market town in protest at the decision not to open the 2025-26 degree programme to new students
Students at the Newark School of Musical Instrument Crafts have taken to the market town’s streets to protest the decision not to take students on to the 2025–26 degree programme. Notices declaring ‘Save the Newark School of Musical Instrument Crafts’ have appeared in shops and pubs around the town, while the petition launched on Friday 7 May has now reached over 6,000 signatures.
On 12 May Lincoln College, which owns and oversees both Newark College and the School of Musical Instrument Craft (MIC), put out a press release stating: ‘The College remains committed to the small amount of affected students and to current learners on their Level 5 and Level 6 courses will be supported, with no change to their courses. At present, there are four students who are being directly affected by a potential single course closure as well as eight others who we have offered places to.’
Assistant principal Melanie Watson said: ‘The MIC introduced the degree programme, which covers four unique pathways, in September 2017 to help address declining numbers which were further exacerbated by Brexit and subsequently the effects of Covid. For the last three years the School of MIC has run at a substantial loss.’
The college is looking at the possibility of discontinuing the degree programme in favour of ‘a full-cost programme’, though it admits that ‘learners will not have access to student finance, and so we are all keen to work with them to design new delivery models but also encourage companies or individual entrepreneurs to support the school with sponsorships and funding.’
A press statement issued by the University of Hull read: ’The University of Hull’s role in relation to Newark’s School of Musical Instrument Crafts is to validate courses offered by Lincoln College. Decisions about which courses to offer are made by Lincoln College. We will continue to support programme validation for as long as the college requires us to, subject to programmes meeting the relevant academic standards.’
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