Caít Keane (Fine Gael)

I ask the Minister for Education and Skills to define the term "professor". A couple of weeks ago, Trinity College decided with the stroke of a pen to call everyone lecturing in the college a professor. This will put other lecturers at a disadvantage when applying for jobs. How is "professor" defined? To do it with the stroke of a pen is not good enough. If there is to be standardisation in education, professorships should be awarded on merit, as they were of old, where a person had to have a certain number of papers published in the discipline or to hold a chair at the university before appointment. I would like the Minister for Education and Skills to examine this so we avoid a system like that in America where there are professors in institutes or even colleges. Our system should not allow for this in one college.

If this comes down to salaries, how will it be dealt with? There are many different types of professor, visiting, honorary, clinical and so on, but gradation should be clear to anyone applying for a job and to the students being taught by "professors" who are glorified lecturers. Trinity College had a position where to be a clinical professor, one must be the senior clinician with a consultant contract in a hospital tied to the university who has demonstrated commitment to research and scholarship in the form of publications appropriate to the discipline in which he is appointed professor. I would like to see the same criteria for every professor appointed to our national universities.