Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

One of the things we should celebrate is the increase in participation rates at third level. When the original Higher Education Act was enacted in 1971, fewer than one in ten people in the relevant age cohort participated. Input from all the organisations represented here and successive Governments means that we have now achieved participation rates which see more than six in ten people going on to third level education. Apprenticeship programmes have also been expanded. We must acknowledge that increase in participation at third-level in contributing to the transformation of Ireland. The task now is to equip ourselves with legislation for the next half-century.

One issue I have concerning this new system that we are going to consider developing is the extent to which we will be able to factor in changes in technology. I refer to developments such as mass open online courses, MOOCs. All the third level institutions have responded to the pandemic by using technology in particular ways. Technology programmes were implemented which may have been only in the planning stage in the previous year. My question concerns how we can equip and future-proof the third-level education system, via this legislation, to enable it to deal with all the technological changes we will see in the years to come.