The school, print educational enthusiast Jackson says, is to be moved to the South Bank Institute campus and will lose many facilities for which the college has become well known.

Jackson complained that the school’s director for the past eight years, Craig Sherrin, is determined to move the site and do away with multimedia, graphic design and photography.

“What’s happening at the South Bank campus is superb,” Jackson said, referring to $550 million worth of renovations, “but the move of the printing college is being driven by the $90 milllion value of our present campus.”

In Jackson’s view, there is a likelihood that the new training facility in South Bank will be for theory only and that all the printing equipment may be sold off, and that South Bank are in the business of print communication and not training. He also expressed concern that there is a likelihood that the new training facility in South Bank will be for theory only and that all the printing equipment may be sold off. His concerns also extend to the future of Australian students of printing.

“We’ve traditionally had about 100 high school students begin their training here each year,” Jackson said, “and from the Queensland School of Printing and Graphic Arts many students have moved on to apprenticeships, gaining a Certificate II. Then we could help many of them to move forward in the industry.”

The plans being put in place by Sherrin and South Bank Institute will stymie this established process, Jackson said, because Sherrin does not want the Institute to offer Certificate II and III courses in the future, preferring to concentrate on courses which attract money from overseas students.

ProPrint online, at time of publication, has tried for 24 hours but been unable to obtain responses from Craig Sherrin, nor a spokesperson of the South Bank Institute, to Ron Jackson’s claims and concerns.

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