Third Level/Feeder schools: Unlike some other third-level institutions in the Dublin area, a significant proportion of the main feeder schools sending students to the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) are based outside the county.
DIT, which likes to think of the city as its campus, has a student population of over 20,000 in its six faculties. These are based in some 40 buildings spread all over the city. Of the top schools providing students to the college, 10 come from counties other than Dublin. Included among these are St Peter's College in Dunboyne, St Patricks in Navan and Gorey Community School in Co Wexford.
DIT says that this is in part explained by the fact that some 37 per cent of its students are studying courses which cannot be found elsewhere. It offers a number of degree programmes, such as tourism and marketing, culinary arts and environmental health, which are unique, or almost unique, to DIT.
There are some similarities between the student intake at DIT and universities such as TCD and UCD, however. Inevitably, private fee-paying and "grind" schools such as the Institute of Education, Blackrock College, Bruce College and Belvedere College all send large numbers of students to DIT. However, it seems to be attracting students from the free school sector as well. Skerries Community College, Coolmine Community School and Portmarnock Community School feature in the top 10 schools sending students to DIT.
DIT prides itself on the variety of courses it offers at diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate level and believes that it gives students opportunities which strict entry to a full-time udergraduate degree does not.
DIT has, in the past, made little secret of its desire to become the State's next univer-sity. However, it says that it views the transfer to Grangegorman as a consolidation of its activites rather than a move towards being granted full university status.
It is hoped that the new 65-acre campus, which is expected to cost €750 million, will welcome the major portion of DIT's students by the 2007/08 academic year, with the remainder following by 2011.