For a man who loves the outdoors, Dr Columb Collins spends an awful lot of time inside. "Interests, interests. What interests?" he counters, when asked. "I don't have time for any interests." That's not entirely true, of course - he keeps fit for a start - by walking, jogging and swimming. He likes music, too. He's been spotted on Friday nights at the National Concert Hall, for which he and his wife have season tickets.
Collins has spent most of his working life in the IT sector and, as far as he is concerned, moving into that sector and staying there was the right move for him to make. "I have no regrets," he says. "It has been a very interesting time and continues to be so." In 1991, he got the job of director of the new IT (then RTC) that was being built in Tallaght.
Collins grew up in the Dublin suburb of Donnybrook and cycled every day to school across the city. After his schooldays in Belvedere College, he went to UCD to study physics. He stayed there until he had completed his PhD and then moved to Dundalk as head of science. It was 1970, and the RTCs were just being set up. The young Collins embarked on his career teaching physics. Later, he got into computing and taught computing management at Dundalk RTC.
Collins speaks about the sector with considerable pride. "The RTC/IT experience," he enthuses, "has been very successful. From a standing start in 1970 we have managed to build up a system which equals the university sector in terms of the number of students." The system, he stresses, offers an alternative to university education. "Our courses are very much practical higher education and very much career focused." Another strong feature of the sector is its ladder system. This allows students to go into employment on completion of national certificate courses, and, as a result of work experience based on their qualifications, complete their studies to degree level and beyond on a full- or part-time basis.
"In Tallaght, we talk about a continuum of educational opportunity," he notes. With the new and growing interest in lifelong learning and continuing professional development, Tallaght is at the forefront of the development of new courses to meet these needs. During the 1980s and 1990s, the colleges were under huge pressure to cope with ever-increasing numbers of school leavers, Collins recalls. The rush for college was exacerbated by a stagnant labour market and the lack of opportunity there. However, there was an upside. "By taking on more students, we created a situation where Ireland was poised to benefit from the economic upturn of the late 1990s," Collins says. "Many of the business organisations that have grown up over the last few years have been developed by people trained in the colleges."
By the year 2000, though, the challenges are quite different: "The number of school-leavers is diminishing, while job opportunities in the economy continue to grow. The pressure is on school-leavers to choose between employment and college." At this stage, the only way the economy will increase its productivity is by improving the quality of the existing workforce, Collins says. "The ITs' role will be to come up with more flexible ways of providing education to people in employment," he predicts.
Already, Tallaght IT has developed an extensive part-time programme, and the interest in it continues to grow. For the IT sector, a major challenge is the inclusion of flexibility in the system. "It's not enough to say to people, `Come along'," Collins says. "People who are working have significant commitments to the workplace and to their homes as well. You often find that students who are coming back to college are at the stage in their careers where they are advancing fairly rapidly in their organisations, but are also in a formative role in their families and social life. They are stretched in all sorts of directions. It's up to us - the institutions - to ensure that we fit their needs."
Modular programmes, which enable students to choose their rates of progress, are the answer. Thanks to the NCEA's credit accumulation system, students can build up credits towards a qualification. The ITs are also investigating distance and open learning methods, where students would work online at home or in the work place. This, Collins notes, would provide a more convenient form of study for many people. "Over half of the modules in the national diploma in electronics, which Tallaght IT has developed with Intel, are now available in open learning mode. Courses are delivered over the Internet. We hope to take that pilot programme and generalise it in the near future."
As proof of their commitment to the issue of open learning, the institutes have established a steering group to pilot its implementation across the sector. According to Collins, partnerships with industry and community groups are the way forward for the ITs. Already, he notes, the sector has responded to the national skills shortage by joining up with business and promoting special courses (the accelerated technicians programmes for example). Industry provides the on-the-job training that is an essential element of the courses. "We'll see more of this as the job market tightens," he says.
Tallaght IT's co-operation with Hewlett Packard and Intel are portents of things to come. "The Technician Development Centre is an off-campus establishment used for training and educating staff in Intel and Hewlett Packard," Collins explains. "Sometimes employees are trained directly by company staff, but more often by Tallaght IT staff. Students gain recognised diploma and degree qualifications that have been fine-tuned to the needs of particular companies. With the modular system, it is possible to provide minor modifications to a validated programme, so that participants receive in-company training and gain a national qualification at the same time." Conversely, company training programmes, already on offer to staff, can be incorporated into existing programmes in the ITs. E
Social inclusion, meanwhile, is a challenge which faces all third-level institutions. The ITs have done much to increase participation levels among people from areas of disadvantage, "but we haven't done half enough", Collins says. "As we admit more and more students of wider ability ranges, we need greater resources to cope with their needs."
The ITs are currently investigating the community college system in the US: "We're looking at instances of good practice there, and examining how we can introduce them into the Irish system. It involves a lot of individualised teaching. In the US, the non-teaching supports - counselling, grant support and a full range of student services for example - are very much stronger than what we have to offer here."
