Madam, - Danny O'Hare, in his article of December 6th, espouses the bringing of institutes of technology under the Higher Eduction Authority, claiming that this will give equal status to the institutes with the universities and parity of esteem.
He specifically states that "institutes are not universities nor should they aspire to be".
He goes on to suggest that the Dublin Institute of Technology, which has clearly stood between the institutes and the universities, should throw in its lot with the institutes and accept once and for all an inferior status.
The Dublin Institute of Technology has a long and distinguished history, tracing its origins back over 100 years.
In 1997, DIT made an application for university status under Section 9 of the Universities Act and the result was the Nally report of 1998.
This was the report of an international committee, chaired by Dermot Nally, former Secretary to the Government.
This group in its report set out specific conditions which DIT should meet before becoming a university and said that "when, in the view of the HEA, the DIT has met the conditions set out, it should be recognised as a university".
The group was of the view that given the evolution and experience of the DIT to date, these conditions could reasonably be met within three-to-five years.
It is now seven years since that report and many members of staff feel that DIT has long reached that stage and should be designated as a full university.
DIT has for many years awarded its own degrees up to Ph.D level (a feature normally reserved for a university).
It has one of the highest applications for degree programmes, with many degree programmes focused on the practical.
It has an established international reputation and is hampered in international accreditation and its recruitment only by its lack of university status.
DIT's new campus at Grangegorman will be one of the finest third-level education campuses in these islands and it would make sense at that stage to designate it as a university and to give it that international badge of recognition.
It would be interesting to hear Danny O'Hare's reasoning as to why DIT, or indeed other institutes such as Waterford Institute of Technology, should not aspire to university status.
Would he have us locked in forever as the junior partner in a binary system of education? - Yours, etc,
JAMES R BYRNE, Chairman, Dublin Institute of Technology Academic Staff Association, School of Mathematics, DIT, Kevin St, Dublin 8.