Students have had the plug pulled on their funding half-way through a two-year beauty therapy course.

With just a week before they were due to return to college, the 12 girls have learned that their course has been axed.

And it has left red-faced administrators at West Oxfordshire College trying to get them fixed up with alternative vocational training.

College principal Trevor Jones said: "We have apologised to them and their parents because it has been announced so late.

"I sympathise and we are now frantically trying to fulfil the two-year agreement we have with them as our students."

The girls, aged 17 to 19, were placed with the Witney-based Oxford International College of Beauty in the town's High Street.

They all passed their ITEC (International Therapy Examination Council) Aestheticienne practical exams and were due to return next week to do their second year in ITEC Physiatrics.

But the Government's Further Education Funding Council has decided to withdraw funding. It was able to do so because the course was actually split up into two separate modules, each lasting a year. Mr Jones explained that the Council reviews its spending each year and how it will allocate funds to colleges.

But the explanation cuts no ice with student Melanie Dunsby, 17, from Mill Lane, Clanfield.

"We are all very disappointed. We were all told it would be a two-year course and now it turns out different. It is a mess," she said.

Melanie's mum Paulette Dunsby was one of the parents who had an emergency meeting with the college principal this week. She said: "They should realise the disruption this causes.

"It is better not to start a course than for it to be stopped halfway through."

The college is now trying to secure work experience placements for all the girls at local beauty salons with day release study for an NVQ (National Vocational Qualification).

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