TAVISTOCK College will receive an early Christmas present in the sum of £150,000 worth of extra financial support.

The college has secured almost £100,000 worth of funding from the European Social Fund to enable it to expand its programme of vocational education.

This has run for the past three years at the International Communications Centre.

The college has set up the West Devon International Business Centre, which will offer NVQ programmes in customer service, information and communications technology, and modern languages as well as the certificate of business language competence in Japanese.

The programmes will be offered free to local businesses as part of the drive to promote lifelong learning.

Programmes will also be available to people who need the skills in their search for employment, through links with the Tavistock Job Centre and Prosper.

Nick Davies, manager of the WDIBC said: 'the contribution from the European Social Fund represents a major investment in vocational training within the area.

'This is matched by funding from the Tavistock Language College. We will be looking to help around 100 people gain vocational qualifications over the next 18 months.'

Other help is an estimated £50,000 from recent allocations by the Education Department and the South West Regional Development Agency.

The department is giving £16.5-million to education authorities in the South West from the money released in the Chancellor's autumn budget statement — this amounts to an average of £36,000 for secondary schools and Tavistock is larger than average.

Assistant vice-principal Graham Stoate said the college was pleased to receive this money, which would be used to make improvements to facilities.

But it was 'a drop in the ocean', he said, representing less than one per cent of the school's annual budget of more than £4-million.

'Much greater investment is needed to rectify the underspending on education which has occurred over many years.'

The SWRDA is spending £250,000 on 17 Devon schools to equip them with high-speed access to the Internet.

Tavistock College could get around £14,000. The money will go via Devon County Council to help the schools join the South-West Grid for Learning, the embryonic schools' computer network.

Mr Stoate said the money would enable the college to improve on its existing ISDN line with a broadband line giving almost instantaneous connection to the Internet.

This is likely to be done in February.