A former course director at Limerick Institute of Technology has accused the college of collaborating with its degree-awarding body, Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, in "dumbing down" courses by joining classes together and trying to pass all final year students to raise the overall number of graduates.
Ms Nuala Kernan, who retired last August, was the architectural technology @ course director for 25 years. She opposed the changes in 1998 which lost it recognition from the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) and led to the current class of 23 students protesting at the college's entrance this week at the lack of "a proper syllabus".
Ms Kernan said the college was cutting costs by sharing lecturers between courses and cutting the total number of hours AT students spend doing instudio work. The AT course change has been criticised by the RIAI, condemned by the Teachers' Union of Ireland representative for the west, Mr Pat Mitchell, and raised in the Dail by Mr Michael Noonan TD.
The college secretary, Mr Michael O'Connell, denied there was any collaboration to reduce costs and increase numbers. He was surprised Ms Kernan was talking to The Irish Times and not to the institute, he said.
The AT course had been modernised to guarantee continued academic recognition. "External examiners had expressed their dissatisfaction with the balance of academic content in the old course and the fact that it concentrated excessively on drawing office practice," he said.
Meanwhile, protesters were joined on Monday by the thirdyear media class who are complaining equipment is substandard to train as sound technicians. They are also unhappy about effectively covering two years' material in one because of a lecturer shortage in 1998/99.
The Minister of State, Mr Willie O'Dea, said the college management had told him it was taking legal advice after receiving a solicitor's letter on behalf of seven media students who made "a compelling" case to him. "It is most unusual to have two groups of students to be in open dispute with the college at the one time," he said.
The Minister for Education, Dr Woods, said in the Dail on Tuesday that he had no function under the Regional Technical Colleges Act in relation to academic matters, which were the responsibility of the governing body and the institute director. "The Act also requires each institute to have an academic council appointed by the governing body to assist in the planning, co-ordination, development and overseeing of the educational work of the institute," he said.
But Ms Kernan said staff withdrew from the academic council, finding it unworkable, and the course changes were made without the governing body's knowledge. "I think it is very irregular, judging by what the Minister said to Michael Noonan," she said.