Farry hints 9,400 new places for Magee target may be pipe dream

He does, however, suggest it may still be possible to meet an interim target of 1k new places by 2015. The University of Ulster recently allocated 572 places to the College and Dr Farry says he has bid for 450 new undergraduate places province-wide under the Delivering Social Change framework.

Dr Farry’s pessimistic appraisal of the propsect of meeting the target of 9,400 places by 2020 follows Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader Mike Nesbitt’s claim earlier this year that he had never seen a risk matrix as drastic as that composed for the One Plan.

The plan had hoped for 1,500 digital jobs, 1,000 creative and cultural jobs, 1,500 knowledge services jobs and 1,000 new green jobs, as well as new jobs in tourism, public administration, health, retail, infrastructure and education, to make up a 12,500 target by 2020.

But the UUP leader and Chair of the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) Committee worried the One Plan could be poised to fail catastrophically.

Now Dr Farry has confirmed that in terms of the 10k Magee new places target failure does seem likely.

He was asked by Foyle MLA Maeve McLaughlin about the target of 9,400 places.

He responded: “Although the One Plan contains the aspiration of a university with 9,400 full-time equivalent students by 2020, the current Programme for Government does not contain such a commitment. Rather the Programme for Government contains an undertaking to develop the One Plan for the regeneration of Derry/Londonderry, incorporating the key sites at Fort George and Ebrington.

“If a proposal were to be taken forward to expand the Magee campus in line with the vision set out in the One Plan, then a full economic appraisal would be required. To date the university has submitted a strategic outline case (SOC) which is a precursor to the full business case. However, the full business case will need to prove that there is sufficient demand for higher education places in Derry~Londonderry and that the decision to fund the expansion of Magee would not be to the detriment of higher education in other parts of Northern Ireland.

“There is a risk that a business case would be unable to prove this and approval for expansion may not follow.”

Notwithstanding this Dr Farry said he was hopeful of meeting an interim target of 1k new places at Magee by 2015.

“The One Plan itself contains an interim target of 1,000 additional undergraduate places by 2015. I have been working to increase the number of undergraduate places throughout the Northern Ireland higher education sector since taking office and, to date, I have allocated an additional 1,200 places to the sector with 572 of these going to the University of Ulster’ he said.

All of these places are going to Magee. Dr Farry said:“I believe that this represents excellent progress towards the 2015 target.”