With over 33,000 students, including over 7,000 part-timers, Manchester Metropolitan is neck and neck with its recently merged neighbour for the title of the largest conventional higher education institution in Britain.

But the giant institution boasts quality as well as quantity, as it demonstrated in 2001 with one of the first 5* ratings for research at a new university.

Sports science was the area rated internationally outstanding, while seven other subjects were placed in the top three of seven categories. Although the former polytechnic has not been able to sustain the lead it held briefly over Manchester University in applications, still only a handful of institutions are more popular.

The demand for places has increased throughout most of the decade, although applications were down by more than the national average at the start of 2008, when the number of choices per applicant was cut from six to five.

Access

Longstanding commitments to extending access are being continued: even among the full-time undergraduates, a fifth are over 25 and a third come from working-class homes. Nearly one in five comes from an area without a tradition of higher education.

Almost 1,000 courses cover more than 70 subjects, with the menu of programmes including a growing range of two-year Foundation degrees.The university takes teaching seriously: small groups are used whenever possible and staff are encouraged to take a three-year MA in teaching. Many courses also involve work placements.

MMU has more professionally accredited courses than any other university Education courses have also fared well in the Teacher Training Agency’s performance indicators, especially for primary training.

Teacher training

The university trains more teachers than any other and has launched a Centre for Urban Education to develop its expertise further. Some 800 trainees and other students taking contemporary arts and sports science are at the former Crewe and Alsager College campuses, 40 miles south of Manchester and now rebranded as MMU Cheshire.

The remaining education students are based at Didsbury, five miles out of the centre of Manchester, with those taking community studies.

A single Institute of Education covers both centres. The Crewe and Alsager campuses are six miles apart, but free transport is provided between the two. Although the rural location inevitably makes for a quieter life than in Manchester, Alsager has an arts centre with two theatres, a dance studio and an art gallery, as well as extensive sports facilities.

The Crewe campus, which has seen a district of the town rebranded as the University Quadrant, has its own nightclub. The university has begun to develop Crewe as its Cheshire base, adding sports facilities and residential accommodation, as well as more lecture theatres.

Student village

The opening of a £30-million student village is the first piece of a rebuilding programme at Crewe, which will be home to academics and students in business and management, the arts, exercise and sport science, humanities and social studies, education and teacher training.

The five sites in Manchester will be reduced to two, leafy Didsbury in the southern suburbs and the extensive All Saints campus, close to the city centre and Manchester University. New science and engineering buildings at All Saints cost £42 million – part of a £300-million building programme for the university as a whole.

The large business school will benefit from a new £62-million building next to the Mancunian Way, while health courses – including the recently incorporated Manchester School of Physiotherapy – will be centred on an enhanced Didsbury campus, and clothing, food and hospitality courses will be based at All Saints.

Overseas links have expanded rapidly in recent years, offering exchange opportunities in Europe and farther afield, as well as establishing teaching bases abroad. More than half of the students come from the Manchester area, easing the pressure on accommodation in a city of nearly 70,000 students.

Accommodation

Some 85 per cent of hall places are reserved for first years, with priority going to the disabled and those who live furthest from the university. The city’s attractions do no harm to recruitment levels, but much depends on where the course is based. Didsbury may offer the best of both worlds, with swift access to the city centre and a peaceful environment, but students at Crewe and Alsager can feel isolated.

Some potential applicants are daunted by the sheer size of the university, but individual courses and sites usually provide a social circle.

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