A journalism course has been axed to new entrants with existing students also facing uncertainty over the remainder of their courses.

Edge Hill University, in Lancashire, has decided to stop accepting new entrants for its journalism courses from this September.

Existing students will be able to complete their three-year degrees up to the summer of 2012, but claim the quality of teaching is bound to be affected by the college’s move.

Although the college denies that standards will be affected, the students, who pay over £3,500-a-year tuition fees, say they face completing their degrees with stand-in replacement lecturers.

Dr Nigel Simons, dean of the college’s arts and sciences faculty, said: “The university’s academic management board met last week to discuss the re-accreditation of its journalism programme.

“After careful consideration, the university has decided not to enrol new students onto the programme in September 2010.

“This decision has no impact on the university’s current journalism students, for whom we will continue to deliver a high-quality programme that includes NCTJ accreditation and excellent teaching and support from the media departments committed staff, through to their graduation in 2011 and 2012.”

However the students have refused to accept the decision lying down and have launched a Facebook campaign called Save Edge Hill Journalism which has attracted over 200 members.

First-year student Chris Malone, 20, said: “We are worried about the quality of the supply teachers that they will bring in and the university will no longer invest any money in the course, we feel let down.”

Ollie Cowan,18, also a first-year, added: “When they told us it felt patronising and sugar-coated. They said journalism has no place at Edge Hill and they don’t have the facilities for it.”

Dean Currall, Student Union Vice President, said: “There are a lot of students that are on that course and we are extremely disappointed. I dont think its fair on the students, but the university has lost £18m funding over the next five years and they have to make some adjustments.”

The National Council for the Training of Journalists has refused to comment on the story.

Comments

Onlooker (18/03/2010 10:41:59)
There is no point in training students for jobs that do not exist and never will. Newspapers are in terminal decline and broadcasting is cutting back. Higher education should target its resources at training for careers that offer a realistic chance of jobs.

Sophie (18/03/2010 13:01:31)
Universities, and the NCTJ, need to be more transparent about the dire state of journalism, rather than cheating thousands and thousands of naive, young students.

Fencehopper (18/03/2010 14:40:10)
Why don’t you two above just admit it – it’s more about saving your own skins rather than a real shortage of opportunities.
Fear is the word you’re looking for. Highly skilled and hungry youngsters showing tired old hacks up for what they really are. No, we can’t be having that.

Sophie (18/03/2010 16:10:33)
Fencehopper – no, I’m speaking as a junior reporter who’s witnessing the industry crumbling to the ground around my feet.

Onlooker (18/03/2010 16:13:22)
@ Fencehopper. I am out of the newspaper industry now, having been made redundant a year ago. Thank god I was because I have never been happier. The reason that pay for journalists is so poor is that there is an endless supply of bright young graduates desperate for their first job. Reduce that supply and pay will rise. It is cruel to lure enthusiastic youngsters in to training – and the debt it now involves – when many of them don’t stand a hope in hell’s chance of a job at the end of it.

FAST WOMAN (19/03/2010 14:06:03)
In 2009 I headed up a short-term but significant online project, overseeing around a dozen trainee journalists on temporary paid contracts.
All were competent, keen, had completed NCTJ prelims and some had journalism degrees.
Not one has a real job in mainstream journalism to date. Three of the most talented are at least using their transferable skills in a related field, hoping this will keep their heads above water until things improve. This week I gave the latest in what has become a production line of references for those seeking temp work outside the industry.
I also supported an application by one to return to higher education so he could switch his career path.
Couple the dire state of our industry with the funding crisis in HE and it’s perfectly understandable that unis and colleges are closely scrutinising the courses they offer.

Chris Youett, Esq, (19/03/2010 15:25:26)
*The main reason that journalists’ pay is krap is that the NUJ was dereognised at many employers using the Thatherite anti-union laws.
*When all journalists get back into the NUJ, we can make real progress restoring pay levels.
*Regarding universities putting resources into courses society needs, promised, promises. One average 75 per cent of graduates never use their degrees. In media studies it is 66 per cent.
*I don’t what newsrooms Fencehopper has worked in, but it is us old farts who have all the real skills and experience – and he/she will be very lucky to work next to the likes of us as most of us have already left.

poor_hack (22/03/2010 10:56:30)
finally a bit of sense, I was beginning to think that universities and the NCTJ had never heard of supply and demand.
I don’t envy those kids who are trying to make it into the industry……they get sugar-coated promises about prospects on the outside world only to have a sharp-reality check.
Most graduates experience a bump when they hit the real world but I expect journalism students will hear bells ringing for months if not years…….

Aragon (12/04/2010 17:00:08)
As a journalist, I would advise any young person to study anything other than journalism. Most major newspaper groups will demand students get NCTJ prelim qualifications and some courses do not even offer these making them a complete waste of time. Students would be much better advised to get a degree which is wider in scope and more attractive to a wider number of prospective employers and then go onmto do their prelims after gaining a degree – financial circumstances permitting. I would not frown on someone having a chemistry degree rather than a journalism degree as long as they had shown determination, commitment, enthusiasm to enter journalism through work experience placements, student newspapers etc etc. As for the indistry crumbling around us – certainly major changes are taking places and things are tougher than ever before but we never entered it for financial rewards or job security.. and there are still well-paid jobs for those who deserve them.