Teesside has always described itself as the Opportunity University, stressing its open access and customer-oriented approach.

But its latest mission statement adds the rider of “pursuing excellence” to suggest that there will be no compromise on quality.

Teesside has long been among the leading new universities for the proportion of leavers going into graduate-level jobs or further training and teaching ratings improved sharply in the later years of assessment.

Official performance indicators also show the university well ahead of the access benchmarks calculated by the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

Participation

Few English institutions draw a larger proportion of undergraduates from areas of low participation in higher education, while more than four students in every ten come from working-class homes. The projected dropout has improved, partly because of a European-funded programme to support non-traditional students, and is now below the national average for the courses and entry qualifications.

Although Middlesbrough has never been considered a fashionable student destination, the demand for places had been growing at a time when some new universities were having recruitment problems. It was the only university in the North East of England to register an increase at the start of 2006.

Niche

There are now more than 21,000 students, half of them taking part-time courses and nearly 40 per cent over 21 on entry. Teesside is particularly strong in niche markets such as computer games design and animation, sport and exercise, forensic science and health-related courses such as physiotherapy and radiography.

Nearly 1,800 students are taking Teesside courses at local further education colleges, which are also involved in the growing range of full-time and part-time two-year foundation degrees.

In the long term, about a fifth of the university’s students are expected to take their courses off campus and the university is opening higher education centres attached to further education colleges in Hartlepool and Darlington.

The colleges are the focus of the Passport scheme, which offers help and guidance to students considering going to university. However, the university’s best-known access initiative targets a much younger age group.

The prize-winning Meteor scheme gives primary schoolchildren a taste of higher education, even offering them the use of a cyber café in the centre of Middlesbrough. University students act as mentors and can earn some useful extra cash and gain experience of working in schools.

Teaching assessments

Teesside was close to the top 20 in rankings from the first two national student satisfaction surveys, with art and design, history, English and law recording the best scores in 2006. Design, computer science, nursing and health subjects all did well in teaching assessments.

The 7,500 health students are now by far the largest group in the university. The latest research grades were an improvement on 1996, with history rated as outstanding, but the overall results still left Teesside among the bottom ten universities. It has since announced a £1.5 million research investment plan.

About £100 million has been spent in recent years on the town-centre campus. The latest addition is the Olympia Building, which combines indoor sports facilities with teaching and research space for sports science.

Before that came an £8 million School of Health, the upgrading of computer science and IT facilities and a state-of-the-art learning resource centre to replace the main library. A £12 million Institute of Digital Innovation and a £10 million Centre for Creative Technologies are due to open next month to support computing, media and design students and encourage digital business enterprises.

Facilities

Computer provision is generous, with 1,700 PCs available. The new facilities are being used to provide degrees in subjects such as computer games design, animation and digital media.

Middlesbrough has more nightlife than sceptics might imagine and the booming student population has attracted new pubs, cafés and student-orientated shops in and around the Southfield Road area.

The cost of living is another attraction: university rents are the lowest in the country and the lively students’ union, which has twice won the title of students’ union of the year, claims to sell some of Britain’s cheapest beer. Outdoor sports facilities include a £1.5 million watersports centre on the River Tees, which is shared with Durham University.

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