What's going on in the RTC sector? Last Friday the Minister for Education and Science, Micheal Martin, announced that Cork RTC would become Cork Institute of Technology before Christmas. This welcome news means that Cork joins Waterford Institute of Technology as the only RTCs to be redesignated. Or does it?
Well, the day before the Minister responsible for the renaming, Micheal Martin, got to make his announcement at conferrings on the Cork campus, the Minister for Public Affairs, Mary O'Rourke, took it on herself, during a Presidential campaign visit to Athlone, to announce that Athlone RTC also was to become an institute of technology. Word was that Martin would confirm this on the Friday, but nary a mention of it did he make, either by way of statement from his Department or during his Cork speech.
Requests to the Department's press office did not clarify the matter much more. A spokesman was at pains to point out that his Minister has always said that he thinks all of the RTCs should be renamed. But he could not say at that point when the Minister would be confirming O'Rourke's announcement about Athlone.
Martin made it quite clear in his Cork speech that just two colleges, Waterford and Cork, had made submissions to the interim review group set up in July under the chairmanship of Professor Dervla Donnelly to consider delegating authority to technological colleges to allow them to make their own academic awards. Neither Athlone nor any of the other RTCs has yet, it would seem, embarked on that path.
Since Waterford's upgrading by the previous Minister to institute status - done on the basis of the demographics in the south-east and the needs of industry in the region - Cork has campaigned hard for similar elevation. And its case is strong - with a student body of some 20,000 full-time students, 14 degree courses, two research masters, 18 certificate and 23 diploma courses, the Crawford Art College and four accountancy courses.
Before Micheal Martin took over in Marlborough Street, it was understood that the Government had decided on a two-tier system of designation for the technological sector. The bigger and more advanced of the RTCs would get the right to award their own degrees and diplomas. They would also, it was suggested, validate their own courses, subject to a quality-assurance process. The other RTCs would continue to have their courses validated by a national authority, the Irish National Institute of Technology, which would also be their degree-awarding body.
What has happened to this legislation? Is it still alive? And does it tally with the Minister's intentions now for the technological sector? At this stage all that is clear is that Martin intends to call all the heads of colleges together in a few weeks to assess the situation.
It has been made known that he considers resources to be the major issue in the whole redesignation/development of the sector, an issue he intends to address to allow for the orderly development of the colleges. But how much he has to spend and in what manner progress will be made is absolutely unclear.
