Sir, - Next week the Minister for Education, Niamh Bhreathnach TD, will address the Dail on the Universities Bill 1996. The bill, if enacted, will have far reaching consequences for third level education into the new millennium. Despite having the largest third level student population in the State and an outstanding academic record, Dublin Institute of Technology is not recognised as a university. We want this very partisan view to end as a matter of urgency. Our reasons are simple.
University status is vital for both the long term development of our institution and the future of our students. As an institution with an unashamedly vocational and applied character, DIT provides an important, but equally worthy, complementary dimension to the traditional higher education system in Ireland. Formal recognition as a university would merely serve to credit the unique contribution, position and role played by the colleges of the institute in addressing the educational needs of the country since the 19th century.
With over 22,500 students including 10,000 full time ones (4,500 involved in honours degree or postgraduate courses, and a further 2,000 at pass degree equivalent level), 8,000 part time day and evening students and 4,000 apprentices, DIT is unique. Our multi level access and range of programmes, which extend to doctoral level, provide a service to students which is unsurpassed by any other educational establishment.
At the request of the Minister of Education, the Higher Education Authority appointed an international review group in 1995 to, review the quality assurance procedures in the Institute. This group recommended, inter alia, that "degree awarding powers be extended to the institute in respect of undergraduate and post graduate courses with effect from the 1998/99 academic year". It also recommended that the relevant authorities should consider whether key features of the proposed university legislation be extended to the DIT, and its legislation be amended in the light of such analysis.
The review group further noted that in accordance with the recommendation of the Government's own White Paper Charting our Education Future (1995), the funding and oversight of the DIT should be transferred from the Department of Education to the Higher Education Authority. In, point of fact, the review group recognised that the DIT was a university in everything but name.
Failure to recognise it as such militates against its students and graduates, both internationally and in the job market at home and abroad.
It is important to note that the" argument is not about status just for the sake of status. A prime motivation for the introduction of the Universities Bill was the need to provide Dublin City University and the University of Limerick with a statutory framework that would allow them to compete with the other universities in the State. When one considers that the current DIT legislation is much more restrictive than the present acts under which DCU and UL operate, and that these in turn are considerably more restrictive than even the published version of the Universities Bill, is it any wonder" that DIT regards its inclusion in the university sector as a necessity? Indeed a refusal to designate DIT as a university can only be construed as an attempt to disadvantage DIT and all that it stands for. - Yours, etc.,
President,
Dublin Institute of Technology,
Fitzwilliam House,
30 Upper Pembroke Street,
Dublin 2.
Note: The Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) was established by the Oireachtas in 1992 as an amalgamation of six colleges, formerly administered by the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee. The colleges in question included the Colleges of Technology at Bolton Street and Kevin Street, the College of Catering, Cathal Brugha Street, the College of Marketing and Design, Mountjoy Square, the College of Commerce, Rathmines/Aungier Street and the College of Music, Chatham Row. Since its formation, the institute has moved from a college based structure to a faculty base which has allowed for greater cohesion in the educational services offered in the community.