"The Diploma course has been magical; all the modules and the teaching have been astoundingly good, like finding a box of treasure in the desert of the life I have been following! Such a shame it is ending..." - one of our current students.
We are very sorry to announce that a decision has been taken not to recruit to the Diploma in 2010/11, and that we are unlikely to recruit to it again in future.
You may be aware that this is part of a wider reduction in lifelong learning provision at the University of Bristol. This has been caused by the Government’s withdrawal of funding for students who hold an equivalent-level qualification (ELQ). We no longer receive funding for students who take a course such as the Diploma, if they already have an undergraduate degree or a qualification at diploma level. More than half of the students who have taken the Diploma in the past have held such a prior qualification, so the impact on the financial picture for the course has been drastic. It is no longer viable to run it, without a massive increase in the student fee, which we think would be likely to deter too many applicants.
The English Department will be continuing to offer some short and day courses in literature and creative writing in 2010/11, and you can visit the listings over the summer to see the programme that will run from September 2010. There are also similar courses to the Diploma run by the Open University and the University of Oxford. Some tutors who were involved with our Diploma now also run an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes in Bristol, with the Metanoia Institute.
I know that this news may be disappointing to prospective students, as it is to all of us involved with the Diploma. I hope that you will understand the unfortunate position in which we find ourselves.
I would like to place on record our thanks to all those students and tutors who have made this course such a pleasure to be involved with during the fifteen years for which it has been running.
Tom Sperlinger
Course Director
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