EDUCATION bosses in Chester have shot down a series of “misleading” comments about student population growth.
The University of Chester is insisting student numbers over the coming years will grow modestly, and claim allegations of a major expansion are false.
The move comes after comments appeared in the publication Chester Communities Together, which is run by community groups based in and around the city.
The issue is to be raised at a meeting of the Canal Basin Forum tomorrow.
University vice-chancellor, Prof Tim Wheeler, said: “The university has not been approached to provide any official statistics for the document, which has been written on behalf of Chester Communities Together and has been distributed to all members of Cheshire West and Chester Council as a statement of fact. It is not.
Nor, unfortunately, has the report been shared directly with the university for verification or comment, which would have identified significant and misleading errors.
“To give just one example of the mistakes and misrepresentations in the report, of our 16,800 current students in total (16,000 is quoted in the report), 9,900 study at the University in Chester. Of those, 6,600 (not 8,000 according to the report) are full time and the remainder are part-time.
“It is wholly incorrect to assume because the university provides accommodation for almost 1,200 students that an additional 7,000 students need to be housed in the community. For example, 1,900 of the 6,600 full-time students at Chester have permanent addresses listed as the same as their term-time address within 30 miles of Chester and therefore do not require university accommodation.”
He added: “The most fundamental flaw in the report is that it is founded on the inaccurate premise the university has been expanding exponentially and continues to do so. Universities are governed by higher education policy nationally. Therefore, between the mid-1990s and 2008, it is fair to say its growth was working towards the then Government’s national target of ensuring that in England 41 per cent of 18 to 30-year-olds secured degrees by 2010.
“Over the past three years, the number of student admissions, as opposed to applications, has been virtually static. The number of applications we generate from prospective students (nine per place, according to this week’s latest data, not seven, as in the report,) proves our continued popularity, but not our growth.
“I have said recently any ‘growth’ may be modest, which has, again, sadly been misinterpreted as expansion on a grand scale.
“In late 2008, the university purchased a plot of land adjacent to its campus, off Parkgate Road, with the potential for developing its own ‘student village with 1,000 study bedrooms’,” he said. “Demand currently and for the foreseeable future would not justify such a scheme, particularly given the uncertainty over whether higher tuition fees will result in more students living at home.”