Last updated 22:29, Saturday, 26 April 2008

Most of its teaching courses are to be relocated to Carlisle to make room for a post-graduate and conference centre in the South Lakes.

As a current student, I am saddened to find that the excellent and enduring reputation of education at Ambleside may be a thing of the past.

The current campus at Ambleside is at the heart of the Lakeland community in that area.

The current courses on offer at Ambleside include both undergraduate and post-graduate teacher-education, as well as providing purpose-built facilities for a variety of degree courses in outdoor education, at the School of Outdoor Studies.

If the move goes ahead, not only would the purpose-built outdoor education facilities be wasted (at great expense to the Lakeland tax-payer), but there are ecological and sustainability issues of transporting in students from the proposed outdoor studies site in Penrith.

I myself am one of the lucky ones to have had the privilege of higher education at this institution.

Having attended two other universities prior to this one, I can testify to the unique atmosphere of this place.

Furthermore, taking away the thriving undergraduate teacher-education department from Ambleside Campus would lead to vastly diminished numbers of students in Ambleside.

Quality jobs for local people are provided by the university’s presence, and the number of such jobs would certainly decline with fewer students on campus.

MISS D HAZORIKA

3rd year undergraduate

Ambleside Campus