University of the Highlands and Islands
The final part of today's formal hearing is a discussion with those who are responsible for the development of the University of the Highlands and Islands Project. It is my pleasure to welcome Professor Brian Duffield, the director and chief executive of the University of the Highlands and Islands Project. Brian, I ask you first to introduce your colleagues, please. We will then move on to the presentation.
Professor Brian Duffield (Director and Chief Executive, University of the Highlands and Islands Project):
Thank you, convener. We are pleased to be here and to have the opportunity to brief you and members of the committee on the progress of the University of the Highlands and Islands. I am joined by Dr John French, the head of academic development, and by Dr Ray Harris, the co-ordinator of strategic projects with specific responsibilities for our community learning networks. If you agree, convener, I shall give a general progress report and invite my colleagues to update the committee on the specific aspects for which they are responsible.
Okay. That would be helpful. We must conclude by 3.30 pm, to guarantee that we can undertake a visit to the learning resource centre, which we are anxious to see. I ask witnesses to keep their presentations concise.
I would like to use the overhead projector. Is that okay?
That is fine.
On the first overhead is the mission statement of the University of the Highlands and Islands project. We are not a university yet; we are seeking to create one for the people and communities of the Highlands and Islands. Over and above presenting our mission statement, I hope that the fact that we present it in five linguistic forms—in Gaelic, usefully for our colleagues from the Gaelic-speaking community, and in Shetland, Orcadian and Scots as well as English—indicates the way in which we celebrate and embrace the cultural diversity of our region and its communities.
We are charged with the creation of a university, which is a historic mission. We also declare, in our mission statement, that we take on a pivotal role in the educational, economic, social and cultural development of our region. It is important to stress that we came from the community and that we embrace the task of servicing the needs of that community into the next millennium.
The case for the creation of a university for the Highlands and Islands is readily made and understood. The map on the overhead shows the distribution of the existing 22 institutions of higher education in Scotland, including all the universities. All of them lie south of a line from Aberdeen to Glasgow. Historically, the absence of an institution of higher education in the Highlands and Islands has meant that many of our most talented and brightest people have had to leave to find educational opportunities elsewhere. Sadly, once they left in pursuit of educational opportunities, many of them did not return. It is ironic that the level of participation in higher education in the Highlands and Islands is among the highest in the United Kingdom.
The case for a university for the Highlands and Islands, dates back to the end of the 17th century and was made against the background of a region in decline—steady economic decline and depopulation from the mid-19th century through to 1961. The creation of a university was considered a way of remedying some of those structural problems.
Since the mid-1960s, the situation has changed. The population of the region has increased, as has its economic vitality. In the recent past, the call for a university in the Highlands and Islands has not been made in the context of decline but in the context of the regeneration and renaissance of the region. The university is considered symbolic of that regeneration.
The creation of a university that will serve the lifelong learning and social inclusion needs of the Highlands and Islands communities in the 21st century has to address the distinctive nature of the region. The area that we serve is not only very large—it has approximately half the land mass of Scotland, 18 per cent of that of the United Kingdom, and is bigger than Belgium—it also has a distinctive geography and demography. There are 93 inhabited islands in the area, which, somehow or other, we seek to reach out to and serve in terms of creating educational opportunities.
A paradox lies at the heart of the Highlands and Islands: how to overcome the tyranny of space that has bedevilled the region over the centuries and how to retain the intimacy of the place, ensuring that we conserve those myriad communities and take opportunities to them, rather than requiring them to come to us.
When we last sought to create a university of the Highlands and Islands back in the mid-1960s, the Government was creating greenfield universities. Inverness, along with Stirling and Falkirk, tried to become the site of a new university that was to be located in Scotland. There was great distress at the failure of Inverness to secure the university; as we know, it went to Stirling, further ramifying the opportunities available in the central belt.
Since that time, things have changed dramatically. I have already said that the region's population and economic vitality have increased. You will have heard from previous speakers that there is also a growing cultural confidence in the region. Over the same period, higher education has changed too. Universities are no longer ivory towers for young adults seeking initial qualifications for a job for life: we have moved into a period of mass higher education with a greater vocational emphasis. In terms of what we feel we can do, the Open University has broken the mould. We are looking for flexibility. We are looking for greater participation among adults of all ages. We are looking for opportunities for both full-time and part-time education.
When the case for creating a university came back on the agenda in the early 1990s, the scene had therefore changed dramatically. As a result of developments in information and communications technology, opportunities were very different.
I have described how the university initiative grew out of the community; it is important to share that idea with you. Many and various bodies have contributed to what I call the rainbow alliance of interests that have furthered the UHI initiative. They include not only the academic partners of the UHI—the colleges and research institutes throughout the Highlands and Islands—but the HIE network, local authorities, health boards and, importantly, community interests.
We are exceedingly grateful for the cross-party support that we have secured and the way in which successive Governments have supported the development of the UHI. We have also had support from the Millennium Commission and the European Union. We have formed alliances with other universities in Scotland and beyond. We have growing relationships with universities in Iceland, Cape Breton, Norway and Finland. That rainbow alliance has driven the initiative forward.
Whereas in the mid-1960s we were considering a single campus university in the largest town in the Highlands and Islands, when the issue came back on the agenda we were able to think in new ways. What we are progressing is a university of and for the region, based on a federal collegiate partnership of 14 different institutions stretching the length and breadth of the Highlands and Islands, 400 miles from north to south, and 200 miles from east to west.
The institutions are of different kinds. Some are large with general further education remits, such as Inverness College, Moray College or Perth College. Some are smaller but with a similar remit, such as Thurso College, Lews Castle College, Orkney College and Shetland College. Other institutions have focused missions, such as the North Atlantic Fisheries College, which services the needs of that major industry in its community. There are research institutions such as the Marine Research Laboratory at Dunstaffnage and the industry-supported Seafish Aquaculture at Ardtoe. There is also the Gaelic college at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, which has figured in your discussions, and Highland Theological College.
The institutions are bound together by a common interest and a common identity. Although they may vary in type, they have one feature in common: they are part of their community.
The concept that we seek to address in the creation of UHI is to develop tertiary education opportunities for all individuals and communities in the Highlands and Islands. We have new forms of teaching and learning, which will support lifelong learning through the development of professional and personal skills. We want to strengthen the indigenous research and development infrastructure to further our mission in terms of economic and social development, to support the region's unique cultural and environmental heritage and to act as a catalyst for economic and social regeneration.
We can think in this way through the power of information and communication technology. The UHI wide-area network is graphically demonstrated on the map I am now showing. There is broadband communication, fibre-optic on the mainland and microwave technology reaching out to the more remote locations, joining every one of the partner institutions with cutting edge technology to provide interaction between them. That will allow every one of our partners, however small, to benefit from the added value of working within this overall framework. Some £25 million has been invested in the network, which apart from one remaining link to Shetland is now complete.
We have sought to bring institutions together through partnership and constitutional change. In December 1998, we applied to the then Secretary of State for Scotland for designation as a higher education institution in the context of the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 1992. Since that time, there has been a process of consultation, which has been progressed by the Scottish Executive. In four days' time, the second strand will include an audit by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, which is examining our academic systems. The outcome of that process will be presented to the Scottish Executive, and we expect that a decision on designated status will be made early next year.
Given the positive outcome of that process that we seek to achieve, we will build on our existing accreditation by the Open University validation service and move forward as a designated institution to be funded directly by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council and then pursue degree-awarding powers, which are a precursor to university title. Members of the committee have been given copies of our strategic plan. You will understand the way in which we have sought to chart the challenges and targets for the years ahead. I am pleased to have been able to give that progress report. My colleague, John French, will now give a brief report on academic development.
Please make your presentation as swiftly as possible so we can move on to questions.
Dr John French (Head of Academic Development, University of the Highlands and Islands Project):
I will outline some of the challenges on the academic development side.
As Brian has described, building new structures for governance has been an important part of the project's work over the past two years. We have also had to put in place a curriculum framework for the university. In a moment, I will talk about what that will create in terms of new opportunities for learners in the future. We have had to establish new quality assurance systems from scratch, which can cope with the innovative nature of the project. Because of its collegiate federal structure, UHI has raised significant challenges to the way in which we deal with quality assurance.
We are encouraging the promotion of new strategies for teaching and learning, particularly when we are dealing with remote learners. We have had to re-examine our marketing and communications systems, not for individual partners but for the whole project. We also see ourselves as an emerging higher education institution. We want to collaborate and link with other universities and to take the rightful place, alongside other universities, that the University of the Highlands and Islands should expect to hold in the sector. We have been working hard to strengthen those links.
UHI is unique, in so far as the origins of the project have a strong presence in the further education sector—that is one of the project's great strengths. We have come from a range of starting points and the project has a great diversity, a range of experience and a particularly strong track record in terms of learner support and lifelong learning that has already been developed in the network's colleges.
There is a strong vocational base and a significant range of courses act as a springboard and relate to the needs of the community and the wider region. We have sought to build on that and to develop a new curriculum—and new degree courses in particular—that is integrated with existing national provision. The curriculum relates to the needs of the area, the work force and the region's emerging employment characteristics.
Throughout the provision that we are developing, we are building in personal and professional capabilities so that future graduates will have the right skills. That is possible because the UHI is one accredited network. Accreditation comes from the Open University validation service. In a number of years' time, we hope to be able to survive quite capably without the validation service's support when we acquire our own degree-awarding powers, which is one of the strategic plan targets that we are working towards.
We have had to be innovative in our quality assurance arrangements and to apply flexible new structures. We are trying to reinforce the regional collaboration and the horizontal connections between the academic partners that make up the network. One aspect of that work is the establishment of the new UHI faculties, which cover five main areas of academic activity: health and social studies, environment and natural systems sciences, information and engineering systems, business and leisure studies and arts, culture and heritage.
We hope that those five major areas reflect significant activity in and future development of the region that UHI serves. We have appointed deans to those faculties, who will strategically co-ordinate the development of the curriculum across those areas. As a snapshot, the new courses that have been developed and that are under development in those faculties include two Gaelic degrees, one in language and culture, the other with north Atlantic studies, which we expect to see as a springboard—as members heard earlier—for Gaelic-medium teacher education.
Computing is one of the network's most popular degrees and many students are enrolling in social science. We also have courses in theology, marine science, music performance, from which we expect to see traditional music developing, and rural health studies. The characteristics of the curriculum are not necessarily what would be seen in ordinary universities. It is designed to respond to the needs and interests of the region.
The student profile of the UHI is of interest. Taking all the partner colleges together, some 5,500 students are already on higher education courses in the network. There is a 50:50 breakdown between full and part-time students and between male and female students, and some 70 per cent of learners are over 25 years of age. There is no better illustration of the way in which this project is responding to the lifelong learning agenda in terms of student participation and activity. We expect to see these trends continuing.
Last, as I was asked to keep my presentation short, I will mention some of the key quality assurance issues that confront the UHI as a developing university. One of our strengths is that we can achieve comparability of academic standards. Our mission commits us to achieving the highest standards in this new university, including the achievement of comparable standards across the network, which is a great, positive benefit from working collaboratively with 13 academic partners. The systems that we put in place will enable us to review and enhance those standards.
We want to be able to co-ordinate quality assurance on a network basis and, as part of the developing academic community in the network, we want all staff to be part of that co-ordinated quality assurance system. We think that we can see the signs of that development coming through.
As Brian said, next week, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education will subject us to a seven-day audit that will take in most parts of the academic network and will, in essence, act as a benchmark for UHI against comparable higher education institutions in the sector. That will be a major stepping point for UHI.
I will hand over to my colleague, Dr Ray Harris, who will talk about community learning networks and the way in which UHI will take provision out to the remoter communities.
Dr Ray Harris (Community Learning Networks – Strategic Project Co-ordinator, University of the Highlands and Islands Project):
I suppose that if a picture is worth a thousand words, I can move very quickly through my presentation.
Brian mentioned the tyranny of space and John mentioned our roots in community-based further education. A few years ago, many colleges started to develop centres—or access points—that offered access to a limited range of their curriculum. With local communities' desire for further educational opportunities, that led to the development of local learning centres.
One example that I want to use as an illustration—I promise that it was chosen completely at random—happened in Lochaber in 1995. Lochaber Ltd, local employers and local training providers got together to establish the Lochaber opportunities centre and involved themselves in brokerage of courses and opportunities for study. Then UHI started to develop in such a way that, with the help of European money, we were able to establish the information and communications technology infrastructure shown on Brian's map.
As a result, in 1999, we have a number of centres around Lochaber that are seen as a local college, or network, and provide UHI degree courses. As we speak, students are studying there for UHI degree courses, taught by colleagues from around the network. The first year of the tourism degree ran there last year and rural development and business administration are currently being taught. That is a quick picture—by 2000, there will be even more. In a sense, that is the UHI writ small.
Such developments bring enormous challenges. We have to face, by necessity, the challenges that many universities face by choice. We have to consider the culture and history of the institutions involved. A key challenge is to make the most innovative use of the available technologies. We must not use them simply because they exist, but use them in an appropriate way, efficiently and effectively.
We must think about the curriculum that we will offer, because not every subject should be offered everywhere. Consequently there is a need for local networks for local information.
Marketing and promotion provides us with a big challenge, as does managing the revolution in community expectations—once we are in the communities, people want more from us. We must engage the rainbow alliance to which Brian referred.
It is fundamental that we think about how students learn and that we change the learning paradigm. We can now move information about. Lecturers used to impart information but we can now do that much more quickly and efficiently in other ways. We must examine how we change the ways in which we deliver the programmes.
All those challenges are faced by the Scottish and English universities for industry. We are working as closely as we can with them in the developments that are going ahead.
That was a brief picture of what we are trying to do through learning networks. It is important that such a network is of benefit to the local community in terms of education, training and economic and social development. That is the aim of UHI. As I am the last speaker I get the prize of showing you a slide that is now quite old—it deals with the economic prize. The information on it is being updated as we speak. Members of the committee may have seen the figures on the slide before, but I can promise that the new figures will be bigger.
Thank you, Dr Harris. I would now like to throw the discussion open to those who wish to ask questions about where the university project goes from here. What have you identified as being the major obstacles that must be overcome to achieve university status?
We are making good progress thus far but we are not complacent and we take nothing for granted. Our achievements have been secured through hard work and through being honest about the challenges that we face. I refer the committee to the strategic plan, which shows that we have reflected on our circumstances and that we have tried to ensure that we make orderly progress.
We have benefited from considerable financial support, but we do not believe that a university is built with bricks, concrete, glass, or a complex wiring system. Universities are made up of people. We have embraced strongly the important challenge provided by the human resources on which we depend, including the professional staff, the academic staff and the support staff who will move our agenda forward.
We must, as my colleagues have said, move our agenda forward in new ways. To do that we have made major investments in staff development programmes. That is no longer the biggest challenge, but it is the biggest opportunity to take things forward.
We have cracked the dilemma of the tyranny of space and there is every indication that we have raised community expectations in a way that will require us to be disciplined to ensure that we deliver what is expected. That is another challenge.
Other dimensions are fundamental. We are aware of the institutional requirements that face us and we will overcome problems by looking inwards at our own capabilities.
We have about 20 minutes for questions so I would like questions to be brief and answers to be to the point.
One of the issues that has been of concern to the committee regarding education across the board is flexibility—in terms of delivery, access points and in relation to the new Garrick qualifications framework and in relation to taking on Scottish credit accumulation and transfer scheme credits. How have you been able to achieve the flexibility you have indicated in your report?
Members might like to look at the new UHI prospectus that has just been published. All the courses at UHI are designed and constructed within the SCOTCAT framework. We are extremely keen to see credit move around the network with students so that they can use it and so that the traditional barriers to cashing in credit between institutions disappear.
That can happen in various ways. At the moment all our new courses and degrees within our schemes are credit-bearing and are designed as modules. Some of those modules are already starting to appear in more than one degree and can be accessed in different places.
The second step is for students to be able to mix modules from different places, to take modules from one centre and to access other modules from another centre through remote learning methods. We are not yet at the stage where we want to do that across the board—we want to be certain that we can protect academic standards. We are considering a combined awards scheme that could be implemented in the next two years and could allow students to combine credit into awards from different places in the network. As part of the community learning network project, we want to establish a particular suite of modules in the remote learning format to allow students to access those from different locations in the network.
Therefore, we have various ways of approaching the matter. Programmes can be constructed from modules that are available over the network; or students can move between centres and cash in their credit from one place to another; or they can access credit from different parts of the network. We are investigating those different strategies.
I was interested to see that you have both engineering and sciences on your curriculum. How will you go about teaching the practical aspects of those subjects, given that it is too expensive to set up laboratories throughout the region? Those subjects are important for people's employment prospects and the work force needs to be suitably skilled if companies are to be brought into the area. I know how the Open University teaches such practical aspects, but how does the UHI do it?
I agree that it is important that a developing university has a portfolio that includes the whole spectrum of studies, including engineering and sciences. We have been keen in our development not to neglect those subjects.
This is an area in which the value added from working with multiple partners is relevant, as not every partner will want a heavy engineering or design and construction laboratory or the latest CADCAM—computer-aided design, computer-aided manufacture—equipment. However, one or two partners might have those facilities. As our courses develop—we have just developed a new mechanical engineering degree, for example—we hope to draw on resources from different locations in the network to create one learning experience for students and to enable students to access those facilities.
Students may sometimes have to move for a few weeks to one location to use heavy engineering laboratories or science facilities. For example, the Scottish Association for Marine Science, a world-class research laboratory, is in the network, which gives science students a tremendous opportunity to access its facilities.
We have a range of strategies. For example, the engineering degree uses simulations that students can access electronically. However, it is the strength of the value added and of the partnership approach that can really help in this area.
Dr French's point about simulations backs up what I was trying to say about the use of technology. It is now possible for students to feel as though they are using expensive pieces of equipment.
The UHI also works with other universities. That approach has worked very well with medicine—through early forms of video-conferencing, a surgeon in Cambridge could perform an operation and talk to students in Dundee or Edinburgh. Furthermore, students could ask questions and receive feedback. We will be operating similar devices.
I have a couple of questions. In the executive summary, you mention that you still have to establish the funding requirements for on-going resources. Taking into account the use of new technology and the wiring-up of different centres, can you estimate what the unit costs might be? Will they be higher than the costs for a single centre or have the new technology and the outreach centres managed to overcome barriers?
Secondly, are the different partners complementary or is there a fair bit of overlap in what they offer to students? If there is overlap, will you consider rationalisation to get value for money and to establish how to find the best expertise to deliver the course requirements?
Perhaps I could answer the first question and then invite John French to talk about rationalisation in the curriculum.
We have significantly benefited from capital investment in UHI and from on-going support from a range of stakeholders. Overall, the investment will be about £55 million into estate developments and £25 million into ICT. I am pleased to say that there will be a £10 million investment into what I call the human infrastructure of the UHI initiative.
Although that capital investment has made possible the development of the initiative, there is every reason to believe that unit costs will be lower once the designation is established to draw down funding from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. The technology will allow for less labour-intensive forms of teaching and learning and for staff to support learning rather than simply to impart knowledge. We will be able to use the same staffing base much more effectively.
Similarly, technology will make available access to learning materials, which will reduce the need for investment in expensive learning resource materials. That means that we will not have to replicate in every situation the costs that are associated with the delivery to students of those educational experiences. I cannot give you a quantifiable figure for that, but we foresee real opportunities for cost-effective provision. It is interesting to note that this model is attracting interest from around the world simply because it builds on pre-existing infrastructure and, through the medium of information technology, is cost-effective.
I do not have much more to add. In the past few years, we have discovered significant benefit in bringing together partners to achieve critical mass. Higher education cannot be developed unless a certain critical mass is achieved, but through bringing partners together, we have seen it emerge. I am sure that, at a future stage of our development, we will try to produce a balanced portfolio of courses and schemes that will avoid duplication—it is better to have one good course in one area than three or four courses that duplicate. We can start to do so now that we have created the new faculty structures that I have described. If you look in the prospectus, you will find descriptions of all the courses in each faculty and you will see the areas that are grouped together.
There are other challenges beyond rationalisation. Teams of staff are operating across the network and working in collaboration with one another so that they bring individual strengths to network teams, whereas previously they were grouped in single college teams. Bringing people together and using a communications infrastructure to support learning will be of real benefit in the future. Rationalisation is a fairly hard word, and we must take care when using it. We are looking for balanced portfolios of courses.
I hope that we can increase the tempo a little, so that everyone who wants to ask a question can do so.
Professor Duffield, I note your intention imminently to seek designated institution status, and I understand fully why you want to do that. The University of the Highlands and Islands is a unique educational institution. Is there a danger that, in being awarded designated institution status, you may find yourselves in the position of invidious comparison with other university institutions, not only in Scotland but in the United Kingdom? Looking ahead, do you anticipate a pitch to recruit students outwith the Highland area?
The process of creating universities in the current climate is sequential and requires that those who seek that status demonstrably fulfil the requirements of the sector. That is why we were delighted that the former Secretary of State for Scotland decided to ask the Quality Assurance Agency—the UK agency that advises the Privy Council on university status—to be formally involved in the designation decision. There is no way in which we can circumvent, or short-circuit, quality requirements. Moreover, because the process is sequential—involving designation, end-degree-awarding powers, research-degree-awarding powers and university title—there are quality milestones by which we can demonstrate that we can fulfil the requirements. Similarly, the acquisition of Open University accreditation status required us to satisfy the requirements not of ourselves but of a panel that was constituted by the validation service.
The approach of the Quality Assurance Agency is by peer review. The visiting panel will compare delivery in UHI against that in other institutions throughout the country. If we do not fulfil expectations, we will not be designated—nor should we be. I worry not, therefore, except that we should be open in fulfilling the criteria.
Following the Dearing and Garrick reports, we are now celebrating diversity in the higher education sector, not spreading the myth that we are all miniature Oxfords and Cambridges. There are many and various institutions, and quality is defined as fitness for purpose. We have declared our distinctive mission and we will be held accountable by our peers. We intend to offer the distinctive opportunities that are available in the Highlands and Islands, not only to our own people but to those recruited from elsewhere in Scotland and the UK. We already attract students from abroad and we expect their number to grow.
I pay tribute to you and your colleagues for taking on what seems to be an immensely complex task, involving negotiations that would challenge the skills of the legendary Gulbenkian.
I want to ask specific questions about the grand vision that you have illustrated and the hard reality, particularly the funding difficulties that Inverness College, with a deficit of £4 million, faces. Can you assure us today that the timetable that you have identified for the process of obtaining university status will not in any way be impeded by the current funding difficulties? If you cannot do so, can you outline what difficulties Inverness College's current funding problems might present?
That is a challenging question, and I will try to give a serious answer. The dilemmas facing Inverness College are not unique. Forty of the 43 further education colleges—I think that that is the figure—in Scotland find themselves in financial difficulties. It is a sectoral problem. Our institutions are not immune from that.
We can say for sure that being part of the UHI partnership has alleviated those financial problems, not exacerbated them. Each and every FE college has not only received major capital investment but is benefiting through recurrent funding from being in the partnership.
We are unique, not only in Scotland but in the UK, for not being subject to restraints on growth in higher education provision. Our colleges have an opportunity to grow out of their financial problems. That option—as yet—is not available to their sister institutions elsewhere. I think that the growth statistics, which are charted in our strategic plan, are the key to getting out of this situation. I believe that problems will be overcome not by consolidation and battening down the hatches, but by working in new ways—not by shrinking the staffing base, but by enabling the staffing base to support an ever growing number of students. Yes, there is a hard reality, and we work within it, but UHI is contributing to the solution rather than to the problem.
I wish to follow on from Fergus's question. We were told this morning that the UHI was the answer to the financial problems of the further education colleges. As an ex-lecturer who took voluntary redundancy last year, I understand how an economics lecture in Inverness could be video-conferenced to 13 institutions and 28 learning centres.
I know that many colleges are facing voluntary and compulsory redundancies. That relates to rationalisation, which George Lyon mentioned. I am concerned about the benefits to local communities, where there may be one lecturer in one place and where there will not be the local input or even the access to a tutor that students would have through the Open University. I am worried about what amounts almost to centralisation as a result of the tremendous strains that cost cutting is putting on your sector.
Ray is dying to get in, but I will attempt to answer if I may. I wish to make one fundamental point: the UHI is breaking the mould in a big way, just as the Open University did.
Historically and traditionally, universities have been large institutions located in large towns, with large campuses. They were centripetal institutions: they drew people to them. Even if we had created a university in Inverness in the mid-1960s, all that it would have done for many people in the Highlands and Islands would have been to change the destination on their ticket.
We are a centrifugal institution. I call it the Polo university, with a hole in the middle. We are committed to moving opportunities to people. The 1,000 jobs that Ray identified will not be in Inverness; they will be all over the Highlands and Islands. The services that support our university will not be based in Inverness. There are eight different elements to our distributive IT network: our video-conferencing services are now being run from Shetland; our data warehouse is in Oban; our Cisco research fellow—in learning environments and technology—is in Thurso; and so it goes on.
The opportunities that we are creating will benefit everybody. It is not a question of people being put on the dole by what we are doing: quite the opposite. Like you, Mrs Scanlon, many of us will have experienced working in higher education institutions where the answer to resource constraints is to pile student numbers ever higher—50, 100, 150, 200 in lecture theatres. That is doing what human beings do not do very well—trying to convey knowledge. We will free resources so that people can support learning. The issue is redeploying, not redundancy.
I will be very brief, but first I must declare an interest. I am on secondment to the UHI; I am the depute principal of Perth College.
I hope that there will be video-conferencing at the 13 sites, but video-conferencing would not have been accessible were it not for the University of the Highlands and Islands. One person in Shetland is doing a rural development degree—they would not have been able to do it if we did not have the infrastructure. We could have a long discussion about educational pedagogy, but I promise that there will be local support for all students in their communities.
I support access to education, particularly through creative schemes such as those that you run. The age profile of students was mentioned. A lot of young people do their growing up in an academic community. What can the University of the Highlands and Islands offer them?
The idea behind the University of the Highlands and Islands was to meet the needs locally of those young people who seldom came back after having left the region. It is important to create a level playing field of opportunities for young adults; we are not trying to corral them in the Highlands and Islands. Many young people will continue to want to go to places of higher education in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and so on and they should be encouraged to do so. Other young people, however, might find that there are constraints—often financial—that keep them closer to home. In a period of credit accumulation and transfer, some will want to do a foundation year close to home and then move to other institutions for honours degrees. We have an articulation agreement with the University of Aberdeen, our sister institution, whereby our students can move on to do honours degrees there.
I think that flexibility will grow as people trade their credit—as paying clients—for educational opportunities. Without doubt, some of them will choose to benefit from opportunities close to home. Equally, we expect to draw to our living laboratory those students from other places of higher education who want the kind of experiences that they cannot get in the cities.
On that point, I would like to draw the final part of the committee meeting to a close.
I thank the committee, which represents our major stakeholders, for giving us the opportunity to give a progress report. I apologise for our enthusiasm.
We revel in your enthusiasm. No amount of glossy brochures can create the University of the Highlands and Islands, but the enthusiasm that has been displayed today will do so. I compliment all who have been involved in the work that has been done. I enjoyed hearing about the project—we will keep an eye on it, as I suspect that it might require parliamentary support.
This has been a successful day for the first committee to deliberate outwith the metropolis. I thank everyone who has been involved in the preparation of the meeting. After the meeting, the clerks will give us details of the informal visit that we will conduct this afternoon.
Meeting closed at 15:31.