A WELL-educated workforce is vital to the future of this area. In particular, businesses need trained scientists and schools need good science teachers. There must therefore be great concern at the threat that the Chemistry Department at Exeter University is to close. Not all Exeter University students come originally from the county, but many who study there decide to look for work in the area when they graduate The decision is not the fault of the university itself. It is the result of a fundamental confusion in Government. While the Department of Trade and Industry is calling for more students to study science, the Department for Education is pouring nearly all its resources into the few university departments which it has awarded five star and five star plus status. Meanwhile, the rest are starved of cash. Exeter?s Chemistry Department, which has a four star rating, has been badly underfunded. It is a sad state of affairs that, having been short-changed for years by successive governments on funding for schools, Devon is now seeing one of its leading universities let down. David Walter Prospective Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for West Devon and Torridge
