Professor Diarmuid Hegarty:

Mr. Miley's response to the Senator was that if we are going to interview, the problem is objectivity. Ideally, all 80,000 applicants should be interviewed by the same person. I am not sure whether the Senator was volunteering for that, but it would be a major undertaking. Interestingly, as the Senator developed his proposal, it became clear, to my mind, that he was talking about interviewing not as a selection mechanism but more as a career guidance process. It is the idea that people would actually spend the first semester at university getting their minds clear. I am aware of many students who have started a programme and then discovered, perhaps after a year, that it does not suit them, and suddenly they have lost a year of funding. There is, therefore, a lot of merit in the Senator's proposal that people should have three months general education during which they can get their minds clear. That transition into third level is a new experience and many students realise in their first year that it is not for them. I think the Senator has got something there. Perhaps we could use interviewing. The whole process of the relationship students establish with their teachers in the first three months would be very valuable in helping them make the right decision.