Only one in 20 universities can afford all the IT and library resources that it needs, a study suggests, prompting calls from a vice-chancellor for the fee cap to be "raised or removed".

A survey of 100 heads of IT and library services in UK higher education, , found that 20 per cent of respondents said that their department¡¯s budget had been cut for 2015-16.

Another 48 per cent said their budget was staying the same, despite rising costs and inflation.

Consequently, just 6 per cent of respondents said that their institution could afford all the IT and library resources that it needed to support teaching and learning.

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Quoted in the report, Bob Allison, vice-chancellor of Loughborough University, described the limited budget for learning resources as a ¡°very significant issue¡±.

¡°There¡¯s not enough money to support the provision of all the student learning resources we would ideally want to provide,¡± Professor Allison said. ¡°I think the cap on tuition fees needs to be raised or removed to support institutions¡¯ provision of learning resources.¡±

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In the survey, 90 per cent of respondents said that students expected round-the-clock access to learning resources, while 78 per cent felt that the availability of learning resources influenced perceptions of the university as a good place to study.

But only 37 per cent said that students preferred online-only access to all the resources that they needed.

chris.havergal@tesglobal.com