EAST Lancashire has a proud history of innovation and expertise in textiles born out of its pioneering place in the development of the cotton industry.
Many production centres for textiles and the fashion industry have left the county – and the country – in recent years for parts of the world with cheaper labour costs.
However, East Lancashire retains a global reputation for producing talented textile designers. And that’s why the newly-announced venture from UCLAN is so important.
The university is setting up a £7.5million campus in Bangkok, Thailand, and one feature of it will be exchanges of students on the BA(Hons) degree course in Eastern Fashion Design which is based at UCLAN’s Burnley campus.
Britain’s higher education establishments have a great reputation for excellence around the world.
The foreign students who come here provide much-needed income, particularly as universities are suffering from government cuts and domestic enrolment problems caused by fees and the difficult economic situation.
Following on the expansion of higher education at Blackburn College and Burnley’s football university as well as the UCLAN campus, this initiative is extremely good news.
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