Further Education
Thomas Rotherham College
There are no universities in Rotherham, you will have to travel to the wilds of Sheffield if you want to find them. There are however three colleges in the Rotherham Borough where you can find a wide variety of courses - flower arranging, NVQS, A-levels etc. etc. etc.
I can only speak from my own experience of a full time computer course at Rotherham College of Arts and Technology in 1999/2000. Having seen the course in which I was interested, I made an appointment, saw the second in command in IT, talked through the syllabus which we both decided was suitable and appropriate for me but, when I went to register I was told that I could not. Although the leaflet containing details of the course stated that it was full time and therefore free, the registration officer told me it was not and I would have to pay. As you might imagine I created a considerable hoo-haa and after some tooing and froing between registration and IT I was eventually enrolled on a sufficient number of subjects to qualify for the free full time course. This was not the end of my troubles with RCAT but I will not bore you with them. Suffice it to say that my main impression of RCAT was that the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing. Having said that both the Catering and the Arts Schools at RCAT have excellent reputations.
These two colleges have merged from 1 August 2004. For more information visit their website at www.rotherham.ac.uk. This organisation is also responsible for the RMA Rotherham Managing Authority.