Oxford teaching courses merge

Schools of education at Westminster College, Oxford, and Oxford Brookes University are to link up from next September with full institutional merger likely to follow.

From September 2000, the Methodist church, which founded Westminster College and owns its land and buildings, will lease the campus to Oxford Brookes. The Brookes school of education will move to Westminster and students now at Westminster will be able to study Brookes's modules, while Westminster's courses in theology would become part of the modular programme.

Students starting at Westminster in 2000 will graduate with qualifications validated by Brookes rather than the University of Oxford as at present.

The merger, which is subject to agreement from the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Teacher Training Agency, follows falls in teacher training applications across the country.