University and academic life seem to be getting closer and closer these days. Tuition fees are having a profound effect on the way young people view their academic careers. This is taking its toll on the numbers going to university, the type of courses they want to take and where they live when they are there.
Optics has always had its own quirks when it comes to university. A decade or so ago the university population was expanded, under pressure from employers, to cope with a skills shortage. The numbers graduating in optometry rose from around 300 to closer to 600. The idea was that over time numbers would rise, and the availability of skilled staff, and salaries, would fall.
This has been the case in some areas but in others, most notably the West Coiuntry and East Anglia, little has changed. The problem is believed to be because universities chose the candidates that had the right pieces of paper and were keenest to get it. This may all sound well and good but it has lead to a situation where those that fitted that bill are very similar and act in the same way when it comes to moving to different regions.
Suggesting this may be down to the sex, personality or ethnic mix of those that made it through to university is not a place many people are happy to venture. Everyone wants professional staff with brains but a little diversity and charisma help too.
News that Plymouth University is to set up a course has created an interesting situation in which a region blighted by skill shortages may have an optometry school on its doorstep.
The employers are understandably happy. The other optometry schools, quietly, don't really want another school to compete with.
Recruitment for academic staff for the new course is already underway but there are a few universities out there keeping their fingers crossed that that process does not go as smoothly as Plymouth or the optical employers hope.
If the trend for students to stay close to home and go to university while living at home persists the Plymouth plan may pay off.
Let's hope the West Country has a ready stock of wannabe optometrists waiting to sign up when ( or if?) the course gets going.
