Dr. Seán Rowland:

In the past year we started offering B.Sc. courses in business, management, finance, IT and software design. They are outside the CAO. The person applies directly to the college and if the application gets through us it goes into the University of London. The person ends up getting a B.Sc. from the University of London, the London School of Economics or Goldsmiths College, which are unquestionably world class. It is very hard work. These people work really hard. The application pool has been older. They are from people who have decided that they must get a degree because they do not have one, because they started one and did not finish it or for whatever reason. There are thousands of people who do not have a college degree and some of them decide they want one and are willing to do the time.

Yes, they are older. Most of them would not be able to afford to give up work, go back to college, pay rent for an apartment and pay tuition and all that goes with it. It is just not possible for them. With this, they can still work. To be fair, some of them work part time. They can stay at home and if they have child care needs they can attend to those as well. This is not generally for the 18 year old. The last thing one wants to do is send an 18 year old up to his or her room to click Skype and go on seminars. There is a social personal development dimension to going on campus. We do not argue with that at all. However, that is not an option for some people, so one is denying them access in a way or they are denying themselves, whether it is for financial, geographical, age or job reasons. Basically, the two words we live by are "quality" and "access". Access is very possible when one can access this from anywhere in the world.

We have been focusing primarily on the teacher education programme, which is very important. However, we must also look at Ireland as a resource for course work that could be delivered into countries that do not have those courses. It is huge and we have the technology to do that. We just need to get the team together. The team members at present are all playing their own game on their own pitch, and we will not win unless we get together and play an Ireland team game. I really believe that is possible. There are some talks now in progress among institutions, that would not have been a regular occurrence in the past. We are beginning to realise that whether one is a State, private or public concern, we are all Irish, we all want a quality product and we all want to go out into the world and sell it. There is nothing to be ashamed of, so sell it. We gave it away for a long time, but there is no reason not to sell it. It creates jobs here, which is what we are supporting. Our M.Sc in pharmaceutical medicine is in 36 countries and is delivered out of Mayo. It is a remarkable opportunity.