Dr. Bryan Maguire:

I thank the committee for inviting QQI to assist the Oireachtas in shaping this legislation through written submission and, now, oral hearing. Some members may recall the work of the last Oireachtas in amending the QQI Act. That Bill was triggered in part when QQI learned the hard way, through being on the losing side of a judicial review, how vital it is that the functions of statutory bodies are made as current and explicit as possible by the Oireachtas. The fact that a body has previously undertaken certain activities, either on its own initiative or at the request of a Minister, or that many stakeholders, including public representatives, might reasonably expect certain actions to fall within the remit of a body, does not necessarily give those actions legal effect. As the higher education system has grown in size, complexity and importance to Irish society over the half century since the HEA was established, it is vital that the statutory basis of its functions be brought up to date.

When QQI was established in 2012 with responsibilities including the quality assurance of higher education, it was not long before some stakeholders, including the universities, began to question the relationship between this new body and the long-established HEA, and whether any overlap of their functions was giving rise to unnecessary regulatory and reporting burdens on the institutions. In response to this, QQI and the HEA put in place a voluntary memorandum of understanding. This set out our mutual understanding of our respective roles and responsibilities, how these were distinct and complementary and how we intended to co-operate in carrying them out. For example, we co-ordinate our schedules for visiting institutions and share various pieces of information. Our memorandum has been implemented and reviewed several times. Head 19 of this legislation proposes to put this agreement between the agencies on a statutory footing. We welcome the legal clarity this will bring. The Bill also sets out how QQI’s work in regulating access to private higher education will be relied upon by the HEA in defined areas.

The philosophy of co-regulation expressed in the scheme mirrors the approach taken to the quality assurance of higher education in Ireland and internationally. Quality assurance is, in the first instance, the responsibility of the institution. QQI’s approach to the exercise of its powers of monitoring, review, approval or authorisation reflects this co-regulation model. In this model, mechanisms of transparency and engagement between the regulator and the regulated address and resolve any problems that the institution’s internal processes have not been able to sort out. As a result, we have rarely had to invoke the more intrusive powers of intervention given to us in law. For example, the QQI Act enables us to issue directions to a higher education institution following unsatisfactory findings in the statutory review but in the ten years to date we have never had to issue any such direction.

The proposed Bill represents a necessary, proportionate, comprehensive and timely updating of the law regulating higher education in Ireland.