Physical versus organic growth

Institutions in the south west are creating a united front - but they are not necessarily all doing the same thing.

University and college heads in the south west agree the area is in desperate need of more higher education. But they do not all agree how it should be provided and developed.

Exeter University and Plymouth University have become friendly rivals in their efforts to bring more higher education to the area. They have adopted distinctly different approaches to the challenge, though each has a stake in the other's project.

Exeter's bid to establish a new campus at Trereife, Penzance, has enjoyed the highest profile of the two. This is despite the fact that the initiative's future is uncertain, whereas Plymouth's venture is already up and running.

Sir Geoffrey Holland, Exeter's vice chancellor, and John Inkson, deputy vice chancellor, have been working with county councillors, local interest and commercial groups and the Open University, to prepare a case for the new campus. They have put in an application for over Pounds 22 million from the Millennium Commission, about Pounds 20 million from the European Union's single regeneration fund and another Pounds 30 million from private investors, to cover the capital costs.

Even if they are successful, the initiative will not be viable unless it has recurrent funding. Exeter is hoping that the Government will be prepared to look at Cornwall as a special case for lifting the lid on higher education growth, as it did for the Highlands and Islands scheme in Scotland. It is also partly pinning its hopes on proposals for a new teaching funding methodology from the Higher Education Funding Council for England that would take regional considerations into account when allocating an estimated 30,000 extra student numbers.

Professor Inkson explained: "We are looking for about 1,500 full-time equivalents to begin with. That is all we need to get the whole thing running by the year 2000. We do not actually need the numbers until the turn of the century, but we do need a commitment to providing them.

"There are many straws in the wind and we have had positive meetings with the secretary of state, the deputy prime minister, the Government office for the south west and the shadow education secretary. But so far no one has been prepared to commit themselves. Our main worry is that the whole thing will be shelved until after Dearing reports, and that after the general election there will be less of a sense of urgency."

Financial hurdles aside, John Bull, vice chancellor of Plymouth University, thinks Exeter's initiative may be the wrong model for the south west.

"I think it is conceptually wrong. There is a serious question about where you believe the students will come from and whether you can transplant large numbers from other parts of the country. If you are talking about attracting Cornish students, you still have to ask whether they will be prepared to travel. It seems unlikely to me that the future of higher education will involve investing large sums of money in new plant and new campuses. Instead, institutions will have to think about growing organically from where they are," he said.

Organic growth is the theme of Plymouth's expansion. Its flagship initiative envisages a regional network of 40 learning centres equipped with computers, email, digital satellite reception and video-conferencing facilities, providing what it calls "face to face at a distance" contact with tutors. The university, backed by Pounds 2.3 million of Regional Challenge funds and Pounds 5 million from partner further education institutions, is inviting bids from potential centres ranging from village halls to cyber cafes to take part. The aim is to ensure that in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset no one will have to travel more than 15 kilometres to reach a centre.

The initiative, known as the Rural Area Training and Information Opportunities (RATIO) project, will be largely supervised by local volunteers.

Matt Barrow, RATIO manager, commented: "We will be monitoring the progress of the system very carefully. Organisations that are putting in bids must recognise the commitment they are making to keep these centres running."

The university is particularly interested in using satellite links, available with the backing of the European Space Agency, to transmit around 850 education and training programmes. It wants to be able to provide training opportunities for small companies. Only 1 per cent of employees in the south west work in companies with more than 200 staff.

Plymouth's distributive model also involves considerable expansion in partnership arrangements with further education colleges. It already offers 30 higher education programmes which can be taken by students based at further education colleges, and has won a Queen's anniversary prize for higher and further education for this.

But Professor Inkson says there are flaws in the distributive approach. It fails to answer some of the region's key needs, he argues. "It can be used to address the needs of the adult education market but it does nothing to attract students in from outside. Most importantly it does not address the lack of a research and development infrastructure, which is absolutely essential if you are going to get inward investment."

Though Exeter is itself setting up partnerships with further education colleges in the south west, and is extending these into its strategy document for the next decade, it is doing so with the principle of research-backed teaching in mind, says Malyn Newitt, deputy vice chancellor.

"If it turned out there was going to be a substantial amount of higher education not backed by research, then ultimately we might want to question whether it is in fact higher education," he said.

Professor Bull is worried that Exeter's initiative will lead to duplication of provision.

"We do want to see more higher education in the region, and if Exeter can achieve that, then that's fine. But we do not want to get into any zero sum games. It is no use if the region does not gain. We must be sure that any developments are complementary," he said.

Some further education heads also have their doubts. Alan Stanhope, principal of Cornwall College, who was on the task force for the initiative, commented: "It is a very expensive way of providing higher education. On the other hand, the Cornish economy is in trouble and needs this kind of a boost."

Professor Inkson said Exeter had looked carefully at the regional demand for courses, to ensure there would be no overlap of provision.

"The last thing we want is to be competing with other institutions for the same students. It is very important that this works. It is difficult to see what alternatives there are for boosting the region's economy."