Napier to scrap popular communications course over "financial pressures"

Edinburgh Napier’s Communication, Advertising and PR undergraduate degree is to be discontinued, according to a letter sent to students this week.

The letter, from Programme Leader Mark Passera, stated: “The University has decided to stop recruiting to the Communication, Advertising & Public Relations degree. As you may be aware, given the current economic climate, Higher Education is in general experiencing greater financial pressures throughout the UK.”

Current students on the course will be able to continue their studies and graduate, Passera added: “The university remains committed to the subject area and to the present students.”

First year student Kelly Barbour was one of many students who were surprised by the announcement: “It was a total shock when I got the letter, it’s sad to think my year will be the last to graduate from the course.”

One third year said: “ What about the people who have applied already? Or accepted the course? Do they just get told they're not going to uni any more?”

A spokesperson from the university told The Journal: “The BA Communication, Advertising and Public Relations programme was due to be discontinued to new entrants from September 2011 but this was brought forward to September 2010 due to internal resourcing issues.

“This decision was made after assessing the impact the resource issues would have on the student experience, something we care greatly about at Edinburgh Napier.”

“Ideally this would have been done before students started applying to the course through UCAS, but as this was not possible, a decision was made as quickly as possible to give applicants the opportunity to apply to similar courses elsewhere.”

The university claim some courses are being cut back because they are more appropriately taught in other ways. Alex Gilkison, head of the School of Creative Industries said: “The consistent information that we receive from employers and government training agencies is that a real skills gap in creative industries lies at the 'high end'. This means that there is a skills requirement for entrants to the job market who have strengths in areas such as strategic management, enterprise and creative leadership. The obvious vehicle for these skills is Masters delivery.

“The view we have formed is that some areas are served best by undergraduate teaching and some by postgraduate delivery. Some programmes, like Photography work very well at UG level. The view we are taking is that in areas such as Publishing and Advertising we are best to focus our interests and resources at Postgraduate level.”