Lift student numbers cap, new Northern Ireland executive urged

A new university oversight body, a review of the student number cap and the regeneration of Derry’s university ecosystem are among the priorities of the Northern Irish higher education sector now that power-sharing has resumed in the province.

The collapse of the devolved government in May 2022 because of the Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) opposition to post-Brexit trade arrangements, left universities in limbo amid a deepening funding crisis and educational migration.

Stormont’s inability to address the country’s student number cap has limited opportunities for young people and damaged the regional economy, Ian Greer, vice-chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast, told Times Higher Education.

“At the moment, current government policy is forcing a third of our young people to seek higher education outside Northern Ireland as the current cap on numbers limits choice,” said Sir Ian.

After sitting empty for two years, the reformed executive – now led by Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill as first minister and the DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly as deputy first minister – will have a full in-tray of requests from the country’s education sector.

Gerry McKenna, chair of the Royal Irish Academy’s (RIA) North-South committee, said the number cap represented a major “brain drain” on the economy, with a high proportion of people who left “reluctant leavers”.

Professor McKenna, a former vice-chancellor of Ulster University, said the absence of coherent academic planning or oversight for the region – an issue that predates the previous breakdown of power-sharing – needed addressing, since it had contributed to an undue concentration of university places and resources in Belfast.

“More than 80 per cent of university places are based in the capital city, which is in sharp contrast to the other devolved nations or the Republic of Ireland,” said Professor McKenna.

“It is difficult to envisage an HE oversight body supporting such a geographically skewed distribution of HE places or concluding that such concentration would be in the interests of economic and cultural development or social cohesion.”

Professor McKenna, who is currently leading an RIA project on the issue, said any additional student places that came from lifting the cap should be allocated disproportionately to the north-west.

He also said a priority for the executive should be to promote greater collaboration with institutions in the Republic of Ireland, the UK mainland, Europe and overseas, adding that the potential for a cross-border university base in the north-west deserved serious consideration.

Garbhán Downey, a spokesman for the Derry University Group, said the city’s experience of Stormont over the past 100 years had never been positive – with repeated broken promises to further develop Ulster University’s Magee campus in the city, and Belfast continuing to swallow up the higher education budget.

“During the most recent suspension, all Stormont politicians have promised the north-west would be the focus for regeneration, but we aren’t holding our breath,” he said.

“Ultimately, the best we can hope for from this Stormont is that it doesn’t get in the way of the good work being done by the Royal Irish Academy and the Irish government, which has recently invested [€44.5 million (£38 million)] in the Magee campus [of Ulster University].”

With Stormont expected to announce a “working party” to decide the future of Magee, Mr Downey said the only solution was a new, independent provider, with places supported by Dublin.

“We need a complete change of mindset from Stormont,” he added. “Derry is not an outpost to be run from Belfast.”

A recent report by London Economics found that Northern Irish higher education institutions received approximately £7,620 in net income per student – the lowest level across the four home nations and approximately 25 per cent less than in England.

Economy minister Conor Murphy said a previous commitment to expand the Magee campus in Derry to 10,000 students must be delivered, and his department will announce further plans on this in the coming weeks.

Mr Murphy said his department will work with universities to put them on a more sustainable financial footing, but that asking students to pay higher tuition fees is not the way forward.

"I want to ensure that the higher education sector can grow in a way that promotes opportunity for everyone," he added.

"That means doing more to widen participation. It also means a collective effort to dismantle barriers to student mobility across the island, so that it is easier for people from the north to study in the south and vice versa."

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com