OK, I will accept that there may have only been 4 self-sponsored students on the course. However they were sent home which is very poor business practice. One could not afford the time wasted, and requested the return of his money so he could go elsewhere. He was refused, which is disgraceful.
The reason the course was not run was lack of manpower. My source is very good (I will not identify here). In any case, lack of students is no excuse at all. SFT ran a course for three students, which dropped to 1 (me) when 2 delayed the second phase of ATPL groundschool for different reasons (now those that know me from SFT will be able to identify me!). I had one-on-one tuition from some of the best instructors around. These two students and I had booked the course, so our bookings were honoured. The school was at the time working with almost complete flexibility because of the early struggles with JAR exams. Not all schools were so helpful.