THE Education Secretary has boosted the University College Worcester's hopes of becoming a fully-fledged university.

Speaking before his lecture at the St John's college yesterday, Charles Clarke said the Government's white paper on the future of higher education would benefit UCW.

"One of the changes we're making is to enable colleges like University College Worcester to become full universities," said Mr Clarke, who was at university with UCW principal Prof David Green.

"I know it will make the application. We're finalising the exact criteria later this year.

"I'm sure UCW will benefit, I'll be very surprised if we don't see a university in Worcester. It deserves to have a proper university.

"It has a great deal of history and a very strong track record in education achievement. For the people it's educated it will be a fitting conclusion and I hope it happens."

The Education Secretary gave a lecture entitled The Future of Higher Education in front of an invited audience consisting of headteachers, UCW lecturers, business leaders and other partners of UCW.

In it he questioned why the Government should continue to invest in universities. He concluded that because the world was changing, students and the wider community should be more knowledgeable to be able to cope with the change.

"I want to put more resources into universities," he said.

"I believe it's important to society we have intelligent university scholars to help us master the process of change.

"There are many people who say that all universities are the same but we have a highly diverse university system today. I think that's the strength of our system.

"In many cases, British universities are world leaders. They've risen to that challenge and we must celebrate that.

"The background to this white paper is the belief we have to keep moving forward. We're right to invest and we should invest more."

To remind him of UCW's bid to become a university and expand into the empty Worcester Royal Infirmary buildings on Castle Street, Mr Clarke was presented with a framed picture of Worcester at sunset.