Shoalhaven Campus To `halt Brain Drain'
Illawarra Mercury
Saturday June 3, 2000
Nowra's brain drain has come to an end with the official opening of the Illawarra Institute of Technology and Wollongong University Shoalhaven campus.
Built on 67ha near Nowra, the $15million campus has facilities for both the university and TAFE with the two sharing a library and student facilities building.
The campus was to be opened by Education Minister David Kemp but he was called to a meeting with Prime Minister John Howard. Instead, Member for Gilmore Joanna Gash performed the honour, saying the facility was a cooperative effort of three tiers of government.
``I'm very proud of the community and the governments for recognising a need and doing something about it," she said.
Later, Mrs Gash said the community had been losing too many of its young people to other areas due to the lack of a high-standard education facility.
``It was a brain drain," she said. ``They were moving away from their families ... so we had to have something here for them." Mrs Gash said there was already talk of expanding to include accommodation.
Illawarra Institute of Technology director Barry Peddle said use of leading-edge technology such as video-conferencing and networked computers would enable students at South Coast Education Network access centres in Bega and Batemans Bay to link with the Shoalhaven campus in ``virtual classrooms".
Wollongong University Vice-Chancellor Professor Gerard Sutton said the campus offered a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Business Administration, and more courses were in the pipeline.
``We'll be looking at around 600 university students here but at the moment, we've got about 150," he said.
About 20 students from Sydney and Wollongong staged a protest against the impact of the GST.
© 2000 Illawarra Mercury
