Mr. Tim Conlon:

I thank the Senator for the very useful points around the development of a national access plan. That process is in train with the Minister and his Department, and the Higher Education Authority has consulted on that.

On the emerging issues, some of these are cross-cutting. The Senator mentioned the technological universities, for example, and the role they will play and so on. Of the cross-cutting issues that are emerging, financial supports for students is one of the key areas for us. Priority groups are also an issue for us, including the Traveller and the Roma communities, and the additional supports that could be put in place to assist people into and through higher education and all through their lives. Another emerging issue is that of specific pathways for special cohorts, for example for children in care, the kinds of supports that would be put in place for an all-of-life approach into further education and higher education, and how those joined-up pathways would exist through us for those cohorts.

The Senator mentioned the part-time and flexible learning experience through the pandemic. Much of the system had to pivot to online provision. We are trying to leverage the learning from that by seeing how we teach and engage with students in a different way in an online environment, what we learned from that, and how can we use that knowledge to develop new programmes or parts of programmes. Not all kinds of provision are ideal for online provision but we can do more to reach out to students in disadvantaged communities, for example. There is also the digital divide, which the Senator has also mentioned and which we are looking at. We are trying to see how we can use the digital experience of a pandemic to reach out to students in communities, to reach out to students in disadvantaged cohorts, and to create pathways and opportunities. It is a very opportune time to have this conversation.

We have not been excellent in Ireland at part-time and flexible learning and we do not have a strong tradition in that. The 9 a.m to 5 p.m, three to four-year degree programme is more common and we need to do more in developing flexible pathways. Now it is a very good opportunity to do that and to look at that. We are currently developing a programme to invest in the technological universities in particular and to have them look at what they can do now in a new way and what will mark them out as different to the traditional institutions. The flexible learning and universal design for living principles are the sort of things that those institutions can take on as a particular mission. I hope this is helpful and I thank the Senator for her very helpful questions.