Modular, Scheme, Undergraduate, Surveying, Environment. The total number of Modules in these courses numbered nearly 200, and all cohorts were taught individually. Many of the courses had less than 20 students per level and dedicated electives at levels 2 and 3. In recent years the UK government has expanded the UK Higher Education sector without a corresponding increase in the level of funding. Additionally the traditional UK policy of paying a students course fees and providing a maintenance grant to cover living expenses is no longer operational.
Students now have to pay a proportion of tuition fees and provide their own living expenses.
The decrease in the unit of funding has forced the University to look at ways of reducing costs. After looking at the course programme within the School of the Built Environment it was obvious that many courses were effectively running the same modules but with different titles. By examining the content of similar modules delivered to each cohort within the school it was very often possible to replace 3 or 4 with a single common module. Elective modules chosen by just 2 or 3 students were deemed to be uneconomical and discontinued. Through this rationalisation process the original 200 modules were reduced to 83 without any corresponding reduction in the number of accredited courses.