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Students and staff blame Executive for university cuts

The Coleraine campus of Ulster University. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
The Coleraine campus of Ulster University. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin The Coleraine campus of Ulster University. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

THE north will struggle to develop an outward-looking economy without an adequate supply of people able to communicate in modern languages, it has been warned.

Trade union Unite said Ulster University (UU) was making the "wrong move" by cutting courses and staff numbers.

Sean Smyth, officer with responsibility for membership at UU, said the Executive budget had forced brutal cuts on the higher education sector.

"By deciding to slash funding for higher education, the NI Executive risks undermining our ability to compete in the global market," he said.

"It isn't that long ago since we lost the German department in Queen's University. How can Northern Ireland develop an outward-looking economy without an adequate supply of people able to communicate in modern languages like Chinese and German?

"Stormont needs to look at expenditure on further and higher education as an investment for a better future instead of as an easy target for austerity targets."

Approximately 30 per cent of the job losses announced will be in grades represented by Unite, with the remaining 70 per cent being in academic grades.

NUS-USI president Fergal McFerran said the cuts were extremely worrying.

"As the latest crisis at Stormont unfolds we see first hand the very real impact of dysfunctional government. This development at Ulster University is a direct result of budget cuts that were handed to the Department for Employment and Learning earlier this year," he said.

UU students' union president Colum Mackey said the Executive had failed to prioritise higher education.

"In cutting higher education the Executive is failing a generation of young people. For some students it will affect their ability to study their subject of choice in Northern Ireland; for many others it will stop them from accessing a university education," he said.

Employment and Learning minister Stephen Farry also blamed the "dysfunctional" Executive.

"I think it is a real shame we are in a situation where staff are losing opportunities. It's also a real shame we're losing student places," he said.