I'M all for people improving themselves and gaining qualifications and experience that help them get a better job, improve their earnings or simply make themselves wiser persons.

But I am blowed if the inclusion in the realm of further education of courses in such things as juggling, unicycling, African drum beating, bell ringing, curling on ice rinks or archery involves anything of academic merit.

Sounds more like playschool, if you ask me. Yet these very things are being seriously put forward as being of value as they appear on the curricula of the new Bite-Size Intros programme being staged in East Lancashire by the local Learning and Skills Council and the week-long Blackburn and Darwen Adult Learning Festival that's now afoot.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not a killjoy. If people want to lark around acquiring so-called Circus Skills or Afro bongo bashing expertise - which, of course, offer tremendous career opportunities here in East Lancashire - let them...providing they pay for the tuition themselves.

But, dammit, there are people drawing good wages at public expense for peddling and teaching this froth in free courses under the guise of 'education' - but for precisely what public benefit, other than their own job security, is beyond me.

Is there no 'audit' by the Government or education authorities of the actual value of this sort of stuff and what return the taxpayer gets on the investment of clueing up people in unicycling or archery? Or is that a silly question?

Which of the three Rs does this stuff come under - other than 'ridiculous'?