Madam, – David McConnell, the chairman of the Fellows at Trinity College advises (October 13th) that the challenge for prospective candidates for the office of provost is to convince the electorate that he, or she, is best qualified. Does this observation not vividly highlight the outrageous absurdity of the chief officer of a State-funded university being chosen by an electorate comprising senior academics and requiring the nomination of 12 of them?
If the secretary general of the Department of Education and Skills was to be chosen by a ballot of the assistant secretaries and principal officers, would Ireland be a more erudite nation? The Trinity system for choosing a provost is both archaic, obsolete and irrelevant for a university that is not self-funded and the process needs immediate and radical change to make it relevant and appropriate when the taxpayer pays its bills. Government intervention urgently required. – Yours, etc,