New Commission needed to run the Magee Campus

In May of this year, I attended the ‘Hume Foundation/Royal Irish Academy (RIA) event ‘Strengthening the regional impact of higher education in the North West’ at the Playhouse. The ‘blueprint’ sets out how we can reduce regional disparity and ensure the ‘distribution of resources evenly and geographically’ and is exactly what Derry and Magee are crying out for. It envisages, correctly in my view, that Derry and the North West should act as a regional counterbalance to the other main Irish cities, Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick and Galway.

It was enlightening to hear Ulster University’s vice-chancellor Professor Paul Bartholemew dismiss many of the reasons that have been used to excuse the lack of expansion at the Magee. Particularly the Maximum Aggregate Student Number, the ‘MaSN Cap’.  MaSN, he assured us, was not the bottleneck, but rather that UU had not tried to “build mass” at the Magee Campus. As such, it was a little surprising to read on LinkedIn his response to Tom Collins’s recent Op-Ed in the Irish News.

I believe Prof. Bartholomew and his team have achieved much, in a short period, under difficult circumstances. But UU has repeatedly stated it can only grow Magee to 6,000 maybe 7,000 students under its own steam. However, this falls far short of the commitment to 10,000+ students given by the two governments in ‘New Decade New Approach’. And it falls far short of the commitment given to Derry/Strabane Council, prior to the allocation of £84m from City Deal funding.

UU, as a service provider at Magee, clearly does not have the capacity to grow Derry and meet its targets for its new Belfast campus at the same time or the will to give Magee priority in its planning. Therefore, it is essential we look immediately to our other options, hence engagement with the RIA is critical.

Clearly, the Irish government recognises the importance of growing the North West too. The recent Shared Island investment of £40m at Magee is part of the ongoing process of linking Derry with the wider Donegal hinterland.

In 1965, my then 25-year-old dad joined the 25,000 strong cavalcades from Derry to Stormont. It was an unprecedented response to the Northern Ireland government’s decision to ignore guidance that the North’s second city was the natural location, in which to build the new University. Instead, the NI government opted for the small unionist stronghold of Coleraine – seen by many as a sectarian decision.

Derry has spent 60 years looking on as other Irish towns and cities reap the benefits of the universities they have built; it is essential that we can achieve our own potential too.

The original campaign created civic unity, single focus – ‘one voice’ led by the late John Hume. Our public representatives need to be equally committed to a joint outcome which is strategic in outlook, not thinking in three-year terms, but looking at development and regeneration in terms of decades – ‘strategic planning’.

Issues on the doors such as well-paid jobs, economic growth, and can all be linked back to the lack of adequate third level education.  If you want to point to one reason that Derry people have half the income of our Belfast neighbours, you need to look no further than the deliberate denial of adequate third-level education to our city. Two out of every three students who leave here to study fail to return – we are educating our children for export; Ours is the only major city on these islands with net migration.

 Universities provide unparalleled opportunities for the region they serve. They give the residents access to learning. They attract and foster enterprises, business clusters and industries. They improve the public image. They develop world class research facilities – building blocks to new and healthy societies.

I believe the target of 10,000 plus is important. UU has been promising for decades to expand Magee to 10,000 students, bodies lobbied for this number from the mid-1960s. In 2010, the ‘One Plan’ guaranteed there would be 9,400 students in Derry by 2020 – but instead Magee lost numbers over that decade.

The development of the 15,000 Belfast Campus a ‘missed opportunity’ to correct student balance across the North. Now the worry is that UU is looking to access funds via Derry to sustain its new £400m campus. UU’s long-standing tradition of developing and incubating courses in Magee before moving them to Belfast or Coleraine has inflamed the situation, ‘Trust’ has been diminished. Trust: takes years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair.

Tom Collins (Irish News 25^th August) is correct “Full oversight is required over UU and its decision making.”

At present, UU is a minority shareholder in Derry, sustained by the Shared Island and City Deal funds. This should give the politicians involved some power to make the required changes. However, it requires a whole region approach by our political leadership and there appears to be little enthusiasm to make this a priority.

I contend that a commission, comprising civic leadership such as Derry City and Strabane District Council, the Irish government and the Royal Irish Academy – with UU remaining in the short-term as a service provider – should be immediately established to oversee the transition to full independent university status for our city region at an agreed future agreed date.