Steve Lewis, who moved to the Island in September 2014 to replace the retiring Professor Ed Sallis as principal, says that the college should be aiming to increase the number of international students by developing unique degrees and research areas.
The college – which offers degrees through Plymouth University – currently has 150 full time students, but Mr Lewis is aiming to double that number in the coming years.
‘I think there’s a lot of scope to look at students from abroad coming to Jersey,’ he said.
‘We are never going to be a Cambridge or an Oxford, but Highlands could be somewhere that offers unique degrees relevant to our economy and our industries.
‘One university in Norway specialises in Arctic states, so wherever you are in the world if you want to study that subject, that’s where you should go and do it.
‘In the same way Jersey could become a centre for research into islands and island communities. That could be looking at cultures of islands, that could be looking at their infrastructure, or maybe their climate, but I think that would have research interest in its own right.’
Mr Lewis says that another way of increasing the number of international students would be to use some of the Island’s hotels as student accommodation.
‘If we had a cohort of 20 overseas students all housed in the Hotel de France next door I think it would work really well,’ he said. ‘You could see the attraction for hoteliers having rooms filled that they would otherwise not have had. I have spoken to people from the hotel industry and they think it’s a possibility.’
Mr Lewis added that he was more broadly looking to develop the number of courses available at the college and that he hoped to offer degrees in humanity subjects – which include English, modern languages, history and philosophy – in the future.
‘The one area that Jersey doesn’t do is humanities,’ he said. ‘We do want to explore other university partners to see whether we could develop humanities degrees in 2017.’
