Institutes stress urgent need for united approach
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The Department of Education has been handed a plan for a 'national university of technology', under which all the institutes of technology in the country would operate.
The idea has been put forward by the group representing the institutes in a new report.
It warned that if the Government did not address the issue of "regional and institutional arguments for more universities, it would face quite a few more local campaigns for universities in the years ahead".
Three institutes are seeking upgrading to university status -- Waterford, Dublin and Cork -- and the Institutes of Technology Ireland (IoTI) fears more will follow.
"This would be an unwelcome distraction from what should be the real issue on third -level provision -- meeting the rapidly rising knowledge needs of our learners, our workforce, enterprise, society and the economy," it said.
The president of the Institute in Tallaght, Michael Carmody, said the technological university would provide research relevant to the expectations of industry and the wider community and would encourage participation by those in lower socio-economic groups and upskill those in the workforce and the unemployed.
Improve
The proposal was also designed to improve upon the Irish Institutes' "lack of international recognition".
The IoTI agreed there would be "an inevitable loss of some autonomy" if the plan goes ahead but insisted the National University of Technology would "operate as an internationally traded service" to maximise Irish involvement in major economic growth areas.
- na Mulhall
