STUDENTS at Fife College have been left apprehensive about the future of their education after being told several courses could be cut from the prospectus.

Jay Hogg, from Rosyth, has been studying an HNC in counselling since August at the Kirkcaldy campus but says his class was told last week that the programme would end next year.

This means that current learners could go on to complete their HND but would be more restricted in further opportunities.

There have also been fears that the college could be preparing to remove two HNC Social Science courses at the Halbeath Campus as well as the Swaps Humanities Course, predominantly aimed at those who have not been in education for a period of time.

Jay, 24, claimed that 42 lecturing roles would also be cut, but Fife College has not confirmed any job losses.

"It's come out that they are cutting funding for 42 lecturers across the entire college and because of that they are completely cutting out every single counselling course," he said.

"That includes the intro course, the HNC, the HND and the PDA in child counselling.

"If this is cut out there are going to be no other places in Fife where anyone can learn to become a counsellor.

"We are going to have to go either to Perth or Edinburgh to university where rather than doing two years at college we would be asked to do six years."

He continued: "Everyone across the college is quite rightly upset.

"There are people on the part-time course who won't be able to finish it because of this, that's three years of college which have been wasted and three years of funding that has been wasted."

Jay says he and his classmates will now be stretched to complete their HND on time, with 100 hours of placement work needed to become accredited by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

"We are being forced to do this within a five or six-month period which is very difficult," he added.

"Feasibly we can get the diploma but we are being put under constraints which make it look like it will be very unlikely we will be able to achieve it."

A petition to save counselling courses at Fife College, available on Change.org, has been launched by students.

Those behind it say that the cuts would "not only impact the lives and well-being of current students and lecturers, but it will continue throughout the provision of Mental Health Services within Fife".

Fife College has stated that "no decisions" on potential changes have been made at this time.

A spokesperson said: "We are aware of speculation surrounding the potential changes to courses.

"No decisions have been made at this time.

"We review all our courses every year with a focus on demand and future employability prospects, which means we continually adapt our curriculum offering.

"The review process this year is exacerbated by a cut to college budgets from Scottish Government funding, which is affecting all colleges across Scotland.

"We are balancing how we utilise this reduced funding with providing an excellent education for our students and delivering the vital skills our communities and regional economy need."