Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses are all very welcome. The Technological Universities Bill has unfortunately not made any progress in the current Dáil. Do the witnesses regard it as very important for the future of the sector? Could they update us? A great deal of work has gone into addressing various concerns that people have raised. I favour it because it would be a strong way to help the sector to continue to transform, to meet the needs of specific areas, to become absolutely first class institutions and to remain a strong feature of the Irish educational system at third level. People spoke about the impact on the regions. That is probably not very well known except at local level.

Do the witnesses have a view of the size the different ITs may need to reach in order to be sustainable and have a strong profile among the community and employers, in cities or at regional level, where the ITs are flagships? Like many people, I read a recent article about Cork Institute of Technology, CIT, in The Irish Times. I was really taken aback by the description of the lack of lecture room assistance, such as interactive white boards - maybe they operate in some part of CIT but they were not mentioned in the article - yet it has an outstanding reputation. I refer to the opportunities for third and fourth year students in all the colleges to do projects in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, subjects, many of which are key to their careers or businesses they might form. Is funding that nowadays challenging and do the projects continue to play a central role in students’ education? How many women are being attracted to engineering? The last time I was in Dublin Institute of Technology, DIT, Bolton Street and on its magnificent campus in Grangegorman, I was taken aback to find that there are few women in the engineering classes. Does the sector have any views on how that might be improved? In respect of the move to larger classes, which people can cope with, I worry about the supports, such as assessments and opportunity to continue to do the projects which are strongly associated with the colleges. What is the position on enhancing and deepening the students’ experience? Many of the ITs have pioneered links with industry in Ireland. Where are they now with that and what can the Houses of the Oireachtas do to assist in creating those positive links with employers and professions that are beneficial to both?