LEISURE and tourism bosses of the future are being groomed at a college which has been judged to have one of the top courses in the country.

And delighted staff at St Mary's College, Blackburn, said they hope their students go to the very top after the college was nominated as a centre of excellence for the subject.

A report by the Further Education Funding Council looked at the leisure and tourism tuition at the college, from foundation courses to A Levels, and found the study area to be in the top six per cent of the country.

Inspectors, who looked at the whole of the college system, gave it a Grade I, remarking on its high pass rates on all courses, the high standard of students' work and the consistently high standard of teaching.

The report said that all foundation and intermediate students passed in the last school year while 97 per cent of A Level pupils successfully completed the course.

Pat Rogers, who is head of leisure and tourism and set up the courses at the college six years ago, said students either get jobs in the industry or go on to further education.

She said: "There are a lot of jobs out there, leisure and tourism is a growth industry, and some students go on to do degrees which will make them better qualified for jobs at the higher end of the market."

Scores of people have gone on to secure employment after passing the course -- in this country and abroad.

Michael Finley, principal at the Roman Catholic sixth-form college in Shear Brow, expressed his delight at the whole of the report's findings.

He said: "In many of our curriculum areas we are achieving some of the best results in the country. We are particularly pleased that the leisure and tourism are has been nominated as an official vocational centre of excellence for the dissemination of good practice. Its Grade I result places it in the top six per cent of all similar courses which have been inspected."

The inspection, carried out by a team of nine during the week beginning November 20 last year, was in favour of the college generally.

Inspectors could find no "significant weaknesses" in the college's systems of support and acknowledged that "pass rates on many courses are outstanding." The college's facilities also received glowing reports, singling out the Information Technology facilities as being modern and of a high standard and its sporting facilities were said to be good and well used. Management at the college was praised for its "effective leadership in the implementation of the college mission."

The college has nearly 900 full-time students aged 16-19 with the majority studying advanced level courses. There are 35 A Level and AS Level courses on offer as well as AVCEs, GNVQs and BTEC courses available.

Of the lessons observed 68 per cent were judged to be good or outstanding and none were less than satisfactory compared to the national average of 62 and six per cent respectively.