Only this country could have achieved what we have

Only this country could have achieved what we have.”
There are many reasons why universities and colleges want to tie the knot. There are 176 higher education institutions and nearly 500 further education institutions in what is an incredibly tiny country. “I believe the Government wants mergers,” says Professor David Warner, principal of Swansea Institute of Higher Education, who will be speaking on the subject at a conference next week. “If you look at the map of further and higher education in the United Kingdom, it’s a bloody mess.

Now higher and further education are testing the water and, in some cases, leaping in at the deep end. Around 50 further education colleges are discussing merger; last year there were nine mergers between further education colleges and between further and higher education, including a mega-merger of three further education colleges in Nottingham (a fourth will join them soon). Merger mania is sweeping the world. Mobile telephone companies, drug companies, accountancy firms, banks, motor and oil companies are thinking about mergers, even if they are not actually taking the plunge. It has submitted a proposal to the Higher Education Funding Council for a significant increase in courses and students at Harrogate..

“We saw the Harrogate campus as contributing to economic development.”Leeds Met is now two-thirds of the way through a consultation exercise about developing the Harrogate campus. Leeds benefited by growing bigger, becoming a more comprehensive tertiary institution and expanding its geographical reach. The trickiest part was the changing position of the further education funding council – which has a statutory duty to make sure that further education is maintained – and the ambivalence of government to a merger between further and higher education.Frank Griffiths, deputy vice-chancellor of Leeds Met says: “It was not in any sense at all plain sailing.”The most difficult thing for the university was reassuring the authorities that it was not going to take part in an asset-stripping exercise.”We were intending to maintain and grow the further education provision,” says Mr Griffiths. Since then, Royal Holloway has gone from strength to strength. From having had a weak position in the research league tables, it is now just in the top quartile.”That says a lot about what you can do if you are sufficiently visionary,” says John Lauwerys, former registrar at Royal Holloway, now secretary and registrar at Southampton University.LEEDS: Behind last year’s merger between Leeds Metropolitan University and Harrogate College of Further Education lay financial and political considerations The college had had some financial problems Going in with Leeds secured its future.

But amalgamation was the only way to survive, according to the experts. Bedford lost its identity and the staff had to move to Egham; Royal Holloway felt invaded by Londoners. The merged institution was the recipient of huge investment and a big building programme. Behind the merger was the harsh financial climate of 1981 when it became clear that smallish colleges would not have a bright future, particularly in science.
For the staff, it was a traumatic event. Firstly, it is one of the few careers which everyone (parents, politicians, media pundits) thinks they could do better than those who have been trained.
Secondly, many language students spend a year as language assistants abroad and get enough of a view of teaching to realise that it is not for them.HELEN SMITHHillingdon, Middlesex.