Dr. Anne Taheny:

I will start the ball rolling. We will probably share the answers to some of the questions across the group.

I thank Senator D'Arcy for his positive comments on St. Angela's College and our reputation for home economics teacher education. I can affirm for the committee that not only do we have a national reputation, we also have an international reputation for our home economics teacher education.

On funding, as I mentioned earlier, we certainly would welcome the advice of the committee as to how best to move forward in terms of being able to access funding. In the initial stages, the committee might be willing to write to the Ministers in both jurisdictions to alert them to this new area of collaboration that has developed between our institutions and to encourage them to look at providing funding towards this type of collaboration, which will hopefully continue to develop - there will be more examples in the future between other institutions. I would like to think that in some ways we are pioneering something that could develop between other institutions, north and south of the Border.

To date, our experience of working together has been excellent. Much of it is down to the key personnel who are working together. I think it always does come down to people at the end of the day. There is an excellent working relationship between the school of education in the University of Ulster and my two colleagues here, the head of home economics and the head of education, and they are the key drivers of this collaboration. Through the various deliberations they have had to date, they have had discussions on many positive ideas that could emanate from this collaboration, and perhaps they might speak on some of those specifics. The potential through this type of collaboration for the sharing of academic expertise to the benefit of our institutions, and, more particularly, to the benefit of our students, is enormous. Do any of my colleagues want to contribute at this point?