The UK’s first private dental school will open next September.
It's aimed at a global market is announced today by the Leicester Dental Teaching Academy and the University of Buckingham.
The school, which will be located in Leicester and will take 100 students annually from September 2013, is a partnership between the Leicester Dental Teaching Academy and the University of Buckingham.
The five-year course, costing £180,000 is expected to be the forerunner of many more private institutions offering specialist degree courses.
The new Bachelors degree in Dental Surgery will be awarded by the University of Buckingham and the course is designed to meet GDC Outcome Measures and European standards as well as the requirements of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.
The degree course is specially designed to appeal to an international market.
Students will be introduced to patient care early on in their training and will be given a thorough grounding in business development, management and enterprise. They will gain an appreciation of the international business environment and cultures in other parts of the world such as India, Nigeria and China – and the impact of oral disease on societies around the world.
Once the school is up and running, the intention is to establish a charitable trust and to engage in research, as well as to award bursaries to promising students with limited means of support.
The new school will create employment in the city centre of Leicester in an area of economic regeneration and will provide free dental treatment to members of the public.
It is well supported by local financing and will be Leicester’s largest drop-in centre for dental services, open from 8am until 9pm.
Professor Terence Kealey, vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, said: ‘We are pleased to be pioneering a new dental school that will offer dental education internationally and dental services to the people of Leicester.’
