Strong community support has been credited with a South Otago employment training scheme being saved.
A last-ditch bid to restore a Government-imposed 50% funding cut for the Salvation Army Employment Plus Balclutha training programme worked late last year, with the scheme recovering all the training places previously taken from it.
The scheme operated two programmes - the Tops scheme and a youth course, Tops national development manager Cyril Shaw said.
Government funder the Tertiary Education Commission (Tec) had planned to remove all funding for the Tops programme, effectively halving numbers and staff, making the entire scheme not viable, Mr Shaw said.
"To go from 16 places to just eight would have made it very hard to continue," he said.
But media coverage over the issue, plus strongly worded support from local businesses and Work and Income, had convinced Tec officials to reinstate the eight places.
"What it means is that we have the same number of places available in 2009 as we had going in 2008," Mr Shaw said.
Already, five students have enrolled for the Tops scheme and six in the youth programme this year.
Tec's reversal decision guarantees the scheme will survive this year. It also means the programme faces its first full year without the threat of cutbacks or closure.
Tops managers first considered closing the Balclutha branch two years ago but businesses, local government and others convinced them to change their minds, subject to regular financial and performance reviews.
