Courses at BCUC offering degrees in wood science have been on a gradual decline, with the FPRC confirming that there were no students enrolled when the decision was made by the college to end teaching in February.
The FPRC, which is to close completely from the end of May, has said that only University of Wales Bangor, through a distance learning initiative, and Napier University, Edinburgh now offer comparable courses, although the latter is more engineering based.
Conversely, Mr Sawyer has said that France has three or four universities producing wood graduates, with the UK timber industry sourcing many masters-qualified employees from across the channel.
And according to Mr Sawyer, the lack of wood-based postgraduate courses in the UK boils down to an issue of funding and the lack of money available from the government and industry to finance teaching.
