Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for not being present for the HEA's initial presentations although I caught some of them on the monitor upstairs. I have a few questions that have not yet been touched on. The witnesses might provide members with more detail in respect of the growing concern that there may be a shortage of places for the next third level year. The concern is that students will be either unable to get places or the points will increase exponentially for some courses as a result of lack of supply. The HEA might give members its analysis on the extent of the problem and whether measures are being taken to deal with it and to ensure there will be sufficient space.

The broadening of entry routes has been discussed previously by the joint committee with the universities and the institutes of technology. How much progress has been made in ensuring that, for example, students in first year are not going into mechanical engineering where there is a limited number of places but instead are going into engineering as a whole? There have been discussions here previously about the Australian model, where people enter faculties rather than specific courses. How much progress has been made and when will real change become evident? While there has been some tinkering in recent years by individual institutions, when will real, systematic change take place?

There has been concern about Irish institutions falling in the international rankings. While I can understand this concern, one also must be mindful that these rankings do not capture everything one would wish. They over-emphasise some areas, while not giving acknowledgement to others. Both the country and the HEA would wish to measure the institutions both on their research, teaching standards and facilities and their contributions to the local economy, extent of access, provision for people with disability, second-chance education and so on. I made a suggestion to the Minister in the Seanad last week that the HEA might consider bringing in its own system whereby the country's priority areas would be set out and there would be a transparent system of publishing how individual institutions are comparing against an agreed set of metrics. I seek the witnesses' feedback in this regard.

I believe Mr. Boland stated that in future, the performance metrics will be used to determine 10% of the funding that goes to individual institutions. The presentation also states "In subsequent years". When will that be and how close are we to doing that?