Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses cannot answer that question. I have anecdotal evidence that there is concern among members of the teaching profession and in the teacher unions about the size of Hibernia College's share of the market. The number of qualified teachers from the college is very high and concerns have been expressed to me about what that might mean for the quality of teachers in the future. While I agree that online education is very much a part of the future, having had a look at it myself, I believe students are losing something by not being in the lecture hall. I accept that with the technology, which is similar to Skype, one is seeing the person delivering the course but the lecturer is not physically present and in that sense, there is something missing. The Open University has that problem too but it has a certain amount of on-site tutorials built into its courses. Perhaps the representatives might clarify if they have on-site provision too.