Adults with deafness and hearing problems learning to lip-read will be among the learners expected to pay substantially more this year, after funding for adult education was cut.

The 16 people on the lip-reading course at the King Charles Centre, Surbiton, will be charged £60 a term - a rise from £20 last year - after a freeze in Government funding meant a real-terms decrease.

Michael Simmonds, a former journalist who started the course after his hearing worsened 10 years ago, said: “Everybody is up in arms about it, including the teachers.

“The point about lip-reading is they are mainly retired people and they need the social contact to learn to read and survive. They have got hearing problems or they are deaf.

“These people are going to be very vulnerable if they don’t go. We don’t mind a 5 or 10 per cent rise but nearly 300 per cent is a bit much.”

Barrie Selwyn, principal of Kingston Adult Education, said lip-reading was still receiving one of the heaviest subsidies, paying just £2.72 an hour compared with £6.80 on some other course.

He said: “Kingston Adult Education has had a deficit budget for the last three years due to cuts in funding. It has had no option but to increase fees in order to ensure the long term future of its varied and accessible programmes.”