It's been described as the best course in architectural technology in the State. Yet last June, Limerick IT informed applicants about major changes to its course LCO10. Until this academic year, the course was a three-year, drawing office-based programme which led to a degree validated by Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, and approved by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI). This year's crop of new students is embarking on a four-year programme, which includes a oneyear work placement in third year. The old drawing office-based first year has been scrapped; students now join a common first year with colleagues from quantity surveying, valuation surveying and building engineering and management.
Second year remains the same as the old second year programme, and fourth year students follow the old third year syllabus. As it stands, the new course is not validated by any institution,. However, according to Gerry O'Loughlin, head of the department of the built environment at Limerick IT, the college hopes that it will be validated by Heriot Watt as well as by other institutions. Architectural technology is a popular course choice for students. Every year Limerick IT receives up to 1,000 applications for some 40 places, and course graduates enjoy high employment rates.
LC010 is listed in both the college prospectus and the CAO handbook as a diploma course (a post-diploma project leads to the Heriot Watt degree). It's a high points course too - 350 points in the CAO's second round - and in Limerick IT only the four-year quantity surveying degree programme ranks higher (at 370 points this year). Concerns have been expressed that the new course represents a "dumbing down" of the old programme and is less focussed than the one it supersedes. The new course, critics argue, will fail to produce people with the requisite skills to work as architectural technicians in architects' offices. There are concerns too, that students will have less access to computers than they had in the past. As O'Loughlin puts it, "the biggest crib is that students don't have computers on their desks 24 hours per day." However, second- and third-year students have been allocated 24 hours computing on PCs each week and the use of 15 dedicated Apple Macintoshes, he says. Limerick IT "changed the syllabus (of the architectural technology course) without obvious consultation", complains TUI representative Pat Mitchell. "Normally you would expect that decisions on the structure of courses would be taken as a result of academic meetings. These changes were presented as a fait accompli after the holidays."
Decisions about the course, Mitchell says, were made on economic rather than academic grounds. The course now involves less studio work and has become a theoretical course. "Where you can combine classes and reduce studio work you can effect considerable money savings," he says.
The course is widely regarded as one of Limerick IT's most high-status courses, Mitchell says, suggesting that this fact might have caused resentment and actually worked against it.
Under the RTCs Act, governing bodies have only limited powers. This enables college administrations to make unilateral decisions, Mitchell argues.
"They can make arbitrary decisions, which have major effects on courses and people, without the need to consult anyone," he says. O'Loughlin denies that the course is being dumbed down or that decisions were made for economic reasons. "The existing course leads to a pass degree, we want to make it into an honours programme, and enable students to go on to do architecture or do masters' degrees," he says. The common first year, he argues, will give students a better and broader education. The old architectural-technology course suffered high attrition rates in first year. This course gives students the opportunity to continue their studies in other areas - they could go into quantity surveying, for example. The fact that Limerick IT is now operating a common first year for students from a range of courses, who in the future will be able to change courses within the department of the built environment for other courses, raises a question about fairness. After all, students are coming into these courses with a range of points from 325 (building management) to 370 (quantity surveying).
Since there's a common first year, should there not now be a common entrance level too? No, says Gerry O'Loughlin, arguing that it would distort intake into some of the built environment courses.
O'Loughlin denies too, that architectural technology has been a prestige course. "Architectural-technology students are not the architects of the industry," he says. "They are operating as technicians. The quantity-surveying degree programme, which was our first degree course, is our flagship programme."
The restructuring of the architectural-technology course is designed to bring it into line with Limerick's other degree programmes (none of which are yet honours courses). "We want to create architectural technology as a profession in its own right," O'Loughlin asserts.
The RIAI though, heaps high praise on the old course. "It's a very good course and is acknowledged as being the best in the country," comments John Graby, the RIAI's director. "It is a model for standards for the rest of the country and that view is shared throughout the industry." There is considerable demand for architectural technicians, who often earn as much as architects and are important members of architectural practices - in many instances even becoming partners or associates, he says. The RIAI, which gives courses recognition based on an assessment of the graduates they produce rather than of the syllabus, plans to review the new course in the year 2000. The course will produce a different type of graduate, Graby notes.
"Our concern is that the new course must deliver the same quality student. If it doesn't, then a valuable resource will be lost."
