Madam,

Given the content of the article (Call for old Coleg Harlech site to be sold to private investors) and the cruel and unthinking opinions it contained on the future of Coleg Harlech, I can only remind you of the letter I sent to the Cambrian News on 24 July last year.

As I said, two news events coincided in a way that could turn out to be hugely advantageous to us here in Gwynedd. Alex Jones reported the huge ‘petition for Welsh history to be taught from a Welsh perspective’.

Meanwhile the clock was ticking for Coleg Harlech which was scheduled to close in September, as you reported.

This concatenation of events gave the opportunity for Welsh historians; the WEA which owns the college; Gwynedd Council, with its responsibilities for education here; the Welsh government in Cardiff and universities in Wales and England, to seize the initiative and produce a plan for the future of the college.

Rather than fall into the hands of the private sector, the college could have been be refunded as a centre of excellence in Welsh history, from a Welsh standpoint.

The college is itself an important part of Welsh political history with its fine history of mature student teaching, some from the mining communities, its publications in both Welsh and English and its truly superb library, with an exceptional collection of works on Welsh labour history.

There is excellence in Welsh history in Bangor and Aberystwyth universities, which could easily have been relocated to Harlech. The students would be beating down the doors from all over the Welsh-speaking world to get into the college, as would the staff.

Funding? Well, the Welsh Government should jump at the chance. Our MP, from what she said on 27 June 2017 about the petition, should back the project to the hilt.

We need, then, a creative mind with the power, authority and funding to launch the project. The minister of education down there in the Senedd is in the right position to put the project into motion.

I think Lord Elis-Thomas would put his considerable influence both, now, in the Labour Cabinet and, as ever, in north Wales, behind the project.

The plan seeks a revolution in Welsh education. This is doable. Let’s do it, Wales, let’s do it, Gwynedd, let’s do it, Harlech.

Yours etc,

Ian MacIntyre, St John’s Hill, Barmouth.

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