Chair of the Magee Taskforce Stephen Kelly on the potential to meet the 10,000 student target by 2032
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00So what we've done is we committed to the Minister that we would produce an action plan by the end of the year,
00:05but rather than waiting for a year to be lost, we said we'd produce an interim report.
00:11So we've published that today.
00:12What it does is it shows that the growth of this campus has already begun
00:17and the means in which to make that sticky so that we finally meet that expectation,
00:22that demand and that agreement in the NDNA around achieving at least 10,000 students at this campus as soon as possible.
00:29And you have put on the report that this is possible by 2032.
00:33This is an achievable timeline?
00:35Absolutely.
00:36Obviously, that's subject to Stormont turning up with the necessary funding,
00:41not just for capital projects but for additional student numbers.
00:45It's incumbent on, and there's an opportunity here for the private sector in terms of developing student accommodation,
00:51as we've seen in other parts of the North and, indeed, parts of the UK.
00:56And it's dependent upon the processes, whether those are planning, whether those are water or other statutory agencies,
01:03turning up and delivering on behalf of DERI and not just the Department for the Economy or the university themselves.
01:08A couple of the obstacles that we've looked at in the past is the capital investment required for teaching accommodation,
01:13student accommodation.
01:14There's also the recurrent funding that's going to have to fund these places at all.
01:19Maximum student number cap, that has to be raised.
01:22You've mentioned this, and you've looked at ways of possibly raising revenue.
01:26Do you backfill that?
01:28So, on the latter, in terms of funding actual student numbers themselves, there's essentially two options.
01:35The first one is that there is an increasing number of school-leaving age young people coming through,
01:41so the demand for university in places will be increasing over the next number of years that are ahead.
01:47Those people have an expectation that they want to go to university,
01:49and I think it's incumbent on the department to provide them with that opportunity and to fund those places,
01:54specifically here at McGee.
01:56If they don't choose to do that, then it is about moving and shifting more students out of Belfast, in particular,
02:03back into the McGee campus.
02:06Both of those options get us to the 10,000 number.
02:09The university's already, over the last couple of years, started shifting programs and students to the campus.
02:15That will continue, no doubt about that.
02:17But there's a choice there to be made by the minister and the department.
02:20Do they want to fund more students, or is this about simply just shifting students out of Belfast?
02:26You've landed on a 700 million figure.
02:29Is that mostly capital investment that's going to be required, or does that include the recurring funding as well?
02:34It's kind of a mixture of both, but in terms of capital, there's an indicative price of in and around £685 million.
02:42Of that, about 40% of it is in student accommodation, which will inevitably come from the private sector.
02:50The other money, about £406 million, is the capital requirement for teaching, research, and space for academics at the campus themselves.
02:59The good news is that a lot of that money has either already been committed or in the process of being secured through the business cases.
03:07So the gap here isn't as big as the 700 number.
03:10We're not starting from zero and trying to get to 700.
03:13Lots of the money's already there.
03:15Lots of players have an opportunity to fund this growth, and we certainly think it's achievable.
03:19And as a dairyman, it's less than the price of a bus station in Belfast.
03:23That's it.
03:24And as that, as somebody who – and you're the chair of the taskforce, but you're a proud dairyman, you're a civic patriot.
03:30You want to see this 10,000 figure as much as anybody else.
03:34Are you more hopeful now, having had a look under the hood, so to speak, over the last six months that this will happen?
03:40I was educated at this campus.
03:42My sister graduated in accountancy from this campus.
03:45My brother just graduated recently in social work from this campus.
03:49My son's studying on this campus.
03:51I'm born and bred and continue to live here and haven't chose to live anywhere else.
03:55This is the single biggest transformative economic project, not just for the city but for the entire Northwest.
04:01We would not have done this job unless we were going to be clear that we wanted to ensure it was delivered.
04:06The partners that we've engaged with are all very positive about coming and supporting it.
04:10It's in the draft program for government.
04:12It's in the ministerial three-year plan.
04:14It's in the minister's business plan for this current year.
04:16Funding has already begun to be provided.
04:19There's a pathway through now to that 10,000 number as quick as we can.