HUNDREDS of people have backed a campaign to save a college in Glasgow's south side which is due close over problems with funding.

As previously reported by the Evening Times, Newlands Junior College is to close amid a bitter funding dispute with Glasgow City Council.

The NJC was the brainchild of billionaire Jim McColl and launched in 2014.

The facility caters for 14 to 16-year-olds who have become “disengaged” from education and offers a range of support, including vocational courses and advice on personal development.

Read more: Newlands Junior College: College to close amid funding dispute with Glasgow City Council

Parents were told by letter that it is the close with the last of the pupils expected to leave by Easter.

A petition set up to save the college has attracted over 300 signatures.

Linda Anderson, who set up the petition, described the college’s achievement in helping young people who had “at the time they entered seemed destined for failure” and instead emerging “as the kind of young people likely to make a success of their lives.”

She added: “There are many reasons for this success. However the most important is the cultivation of strong trusting relationships between students and staff.

“Young people who started out very suspicious of adults in authority have come to realise that the teachers at the College are on their side.

“The quality of relationships can only be established in the intimate atmosphere of a small college, specifically dedicated to a group of disadvantaged young people.”

Read more: Newlands Junior College: College to close amid funding dispute with Glasgow City Council

To support the petition, visit the online page here.