Teaching Matters/Danny O'Hare: The Department of Education and Science (DES) will shortly introduce legislation to bring the institutes of technology under the umbrella of the Higher Education Authority (HEA).

As a long-time supporter of the distinctive role these institutes play in our third-level system, I warmly welcome this change. But we need to be careful to carry it out in the right way.

First, we need to be clear about why reform is essential. The reason is not, as many people might think, to get more resources for the institutes of technology. The surprising fact is that they are in many ways already better off than the universities. Consider, for instance:

Student/staff ratios in the institutes are 11:1, compared with 22:1 in the universities.

In the period 1997 to 2005, capital grants to the institutes came to €716 million, against €368 million to the universities.

The Kelly Report on infrastructural needs of the higher-education sector recommended €696 million for the institutes and only €217 million for the universities.

Following benchmarking, lecturers and senior lecturers in the institutes are on higher salaries than their university counterparts.

The overwhelming case for change is driven by the need for parity of esteem between the two sectors, to remove once and for all the impression that institutes of technology are inferior to universities in the educational pecking order. One practical expression of the institutes' lack of status is the way the DES disempowers them by detailed involvement in their day-to-day management. An immediate result of the change should be that the ITs will enjoy the same relative autonomy that universities do now.

However, parity of esteem will not be created simply by moving the institutes under the HEA's umbrella. Even more important is the need to create within the HEA separate (but equal) structures to deal with the two sectors - the "two committees" approach recommended by the OECD review. It is the experience internationally that where universities and institutions like our institutes of technology are closely aligned, then the university ethos eventually dominates. This is why the twin-track approach is vital as a buffer against both mission drift and university dominance.

Institutes of technology are not universities, nor should they aspire to be such. Instead, they need to be seen (and to see themselves) as, in the words of the OECD, "an equal partner in a dynamic higher-education system which covers a diverse range of functions".

For years, there has been pressure to give the ITs university status as a way of gaining the autonomy they justifiably sought. Some leaders in the sector, in arguing for university status, have claimed "institutional convergence" as a justification - namely, that the mix of courses and roles of the two sectors has become so much intertwined, that there was a decreasing distinction between the two. But if that is truly happening then we have a real problem - either that universities have departed from their role or that the institutes have done so.

The OECD is in no doubt that one of the strengths of Ireland's third-level education system is the way it maintains a diversity of mission between the university and the institute sectors, and that it is critical we maintain that diversity. Elements of the difference include the role the institutes play in local economic development, in encouraging wider participation through their local catchment areas, their support for apprenticeship and craft skill training and the provision of ladders of opportunity through different educational levels, and in the applied character of their work.

In practice, under the new approach an early need will be to develop different funding models for universities and institutes, with, for instance, research playing a greater role in the funding for universities than in the institutes. To impose a "one size fits all" approach would fail to reflect the difference in needs and priorities.

Another priority will be to recognise the need for much greater collaboration between the individual institutes, to overcome the disadvantage that they are (like Irish universities) relatively small by world standards.

But perhaps the most pressing need for organisational change is in the role played by the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT). Until recently, the DIT was focused on achieving university status and has tended to distance itself from the other institutes as part of its efforts to distinguish it from them.

I understand that the new president has parked the idea indefinitely, and is happy with the DIT as it is and as to what it stands for. But DIT has not yet got any closer to the other institutes of technology. The proposed reorganisation of the sector provides the opportunity for DIT to establish close relations with the national system. By moving from its present ambiguous position between universities and institutes of technology, DIT can firmly establish itself as a member - albeit the largest one - of the national system and to add its undoubted strength to that system.

However, the most significant opportunity opened up by rationalising the third-level sector within the HEA applies to the entire sector, not just the ITs. This is the formulation of a national strategic plan for Ireland's third-level education, to tie together the ambitions of individual institutions in the context of the country's long-term economic and social needs. If we are to get value from what we invest in education, to say nothing of our ambition to achieve leadership in the knowledge society, we need to develop a joined-up policy that unites everyone in education.

Danny O'Hare is a former president of Dublin City University