Derry breathes a sigh of relief as Ulster University plan to move 800 places to Magee…

It’s been a debate rumbling on since the 1960s and has been subject to many slugger posts over the years. Including the lack of strategic thinking over the long-term viability for our health service. The post graduate entry medical school at Magee is set to take students in September this year (according to UU’s website at time of posting) but it has been blighted by delays and began as a project in the early noughties. 20 years in Derry (policy) …

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Ulster University and where to find 100 more doctors?

  It has been an argument raging on for 50 years, it briefly united Unionist and Nationalist elected reps in a period of violent division but it has yet to be resolved; a University for our second city. When the Stormont government attempted to shutdown the Magee University College (as it then was) campus and divert its resources to the New Ulster University in Coleraine which was recommended by the Lockwood Report. The City rose up in unity with Brian …

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Ulster Uni’s new Belfast Campus Shows it isn’t Serious About Magee Expansion. So it’s time for Derry to Look Elsewhere

Last week’s A’Level results not only signalled the start of the annual scramble to secure a place at University. They also pointed to a worrying development for the long-promised expansion of Magee campus in Derry. Student Numbers Falling Figures from UCAS (the University and Colleges Admissions Service) show a 4% fall this year in applications to go to University – the first such decline in five years.  All parts of the UK are reflecting this drop, and the figures also …

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Magee or not Magee – Time for for a graduate entry medical school in Derry / Londonderry?

  There is definite support in Derry for Ulster University’s proposal for a graduate entry medical school at Magee campus.  After 53 years of exasperation that the city does not have a full sized university, actual excitement for such ideas is always tempered by fear that it will not happen.  But at least the city’s response is definitely positive – unlike the apparent reactions in Belfast and Coleraine. A medical school in Derry should be a no brainer.  There are …

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EDUCATING ULSTER : Northern Ireland has a chronic shortage of students, whilst Belfast has too many and the west of the province has too few. The solution is obvious.

September marked the annual return of students to their term-time accommodation. And within two days residents of the Holylands had lodged over 150 complaints of anti-social behaviour with Belfast City Council. That university neighbourhood’s term-time population comprises over 90% of students/young people, amounting to an estimated 7,000 in just one square kilometre. It will probably provide little comfort to residents of the Holylands to learn that Northern Ireland (NI) has the lowest provision of university places in the UK. And …

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It’s time to right a 50 year injustice and expand Magee College Derry

Colum Eastwood is an SDLP MLA for Foyle. Next Tuesday marks the 50th anniversary of a report which condemned Derry to decades of economic stagnation. The Lockwood Report recommended the siting of a second university in Northern Ireland at Coleraine instead of Derry. The publication of the report was the catalyst for a mass, cross-community, campaign by the people of Derry. The effects of the Stormont government’s subsequent decision not to support a new university in Derry are still acutely …

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