Following the announcement that 800 Health Sciences undergraduate programme positions will be relocated to Magee – People Before Profit Councillor Shaun Harkin has agreed with DUP Economy Minister Diane Dodds that Ulster University should ensure “balance across all of the university’s campuses.”
People Before Profit Cllr Shaun Harkin said, “Coleraine campus has around 800 mainly well paid jobs compared to just 350 on Magee campus. The majority of the imbalance is because of the number of professional and technical staff at Coleraine.
“If you go onto the Ulster University website you will see that most of the Central departments of the University – finance, HR, the VC’s office etc are located on the Coleraine campus.
“People Before Profit has long argued that the absence of a proper University in Derry is not only a matter of student numbers, with which there will continue to be a massive deficit, but also of the well paid administrative jobs that come with a University. Coleraine has many of them, not a single central department of the University is located in Magee. The campus is really second class compared to Coleraine.
“In relation to academic staff, Coleraine has almost 100 more staff than Magee with about 1000 more students. The population of Coleraine is less than a quarter of Derry, so with a balanced approach we would expect Magee to have four times the number of students and jobs. So, yes, let’s get some balance between Coleraine and Magee.”
