Education

First-rate education supports healthy skills base
Cornwall was recently judged to have the best-performing Local Education Authority in the South West and one of the best in the country, in an outstanding report by government inspectors.

It's not just exam results that are well above the national average. Cornwall's young people also enjoy exceptionally rich extra-curricular possibilities:

World-class cultural centres such as the Eden Project, Tate St Ives and the National Maritime Museum Cornwall work closely with the county's schools and colleges to provide unique learning opportunities.
Sports provision in Cornish schools is amongst the best in the UK. The Cornwall Outdoors programme runs eight residential centres, mainly along the Cornish coastline, where qualified instructors help teenagers develop a range of skills including sailing, climbing, team-building and problem-solving.
The Music Service supports the highest quality of music education, providing instrumental tuition at all levels and styles to schools, colleges and music centres throughout Cornwall. The Service also directs a variety of orchestras and ensembles for all abilities.

Cornwall offers a wide range of educational opportunities at secondary level. Twelve of the county's comprehensives have been awarded specialist school status in subject areas including technology, languages and sport, and there are also several highly-rated private schools.

Combined Universities in Cornwall
Over the past few years, an extraordinary vision has become reality in Cornwall, dramatically raising the profile of the county's higher educational institutions.

The Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC) brings together the formidable strengths of Falmouth College of Arts, the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, The Open University, The College of St Mark & St John and the new Peninsula Medical School, together with Cornwall's further education colleges.

The 'hub' of the CUC is a spectacular new £50 million campus at Tremough, near Falmouth, which boasts unrivalled media, IT and specialised scientific facilities. The campus houses a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses run by:

Falmouth College of Arts, which enjoys an excellent reputation in art, design and media
Exeter University, one of the country's leading full-spectrum universities
Camborne School of Mines, a world-leader in earth sciences and engineering

The 'rim' of the CUC comprises all of Cornwall's colleges of further and higher education, including:

Cornwall College, the largest college of further and higher education in the UK, with a long history of providing work-related education at six main sites across the county
Truro College, which has consistently ranked among the UK's top ten colleges in terms of results, with particular strengths in media and performance-related subjects
Penwith College, which in 2003 achieved a remarkable 100% pass rate in 30 A-level subjects
Duchy College, which specialises in agriculture, horticulture and land-based programmes

Business support and collaboration
The Combined Universities in Cornwall project is already giving a huge boost to the Cornish economy. It should provide some 4,000 additional student places by 2010, and these alone are forecast to create over 1,000 extra jobs and £31 million in economic turnover.

And that's not the only good news for business. In fact, CUC has the interests of economic development right at its heart, and will help to accomplish this by:

Promoting best practice and world-class competitiveness - particularly in the creative industries and environmental and earth sciences.
Fostering innovation in design and technology - focusing especially on high-growth, knowledge-based businesses.
Technology and knowledge transfer - using the expertise and knowledge of teaching staff and students to help businesses develop and grow.
Supporting business networking and clustering - promoting the sharing of knowledge and resources between companies in the same fields and encouraging the development of dynamic groupings of Cornwall-based businesses in particular sectors.
Providing bespoke training and workforce development - companies will be able to call on a wide range of resources from the CUC partner institutions to develop comprehensive training packages for their personnel.