Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

I wish to share time with Deputy Catherine Murphy.

Previous speakers have declared an interest in terms of working with various institutes of technology. Some have participated on governing bodies. My particular interest derives from the fact that I twice attended an institute of technology. I welcome the introduction of a Bill that raises standards and gives adequate recognition to the qualifications that are offered by institutes of technology.

However, we need a wider debate on Second Stage on the role of institutes of technology within the wider third level sector. To paraphrase George Orwell, some third level institutions are "more different than others". Very often the status that attaches to university education still remains resolutely unattached to institutes of technology, despite the fine work that is being done there and the highly skilled people who emerge from them.

My attendance at what was then Cork Regional Technical College was first on a course in business studies and then, after a damascene conversion a number of years later, a course in child care. I have always thought that made me qualified to sell babies. I have always been grateful for the years I spent in Cork RTC, which has subsequently become Cork Institute of Technology, because of the many ideas that I gained from my time there, especially in the second period. It was not much of a wrench to return to third level education during the 1980s because there were no jobs. Enrolling in third level education was an opportunity that might otherwise not have existed.

The institutes of technology have always been innovative and flexible in developing new courses in ways the university sector has been unable to do. The child care course I took was, in effect, a course in community care and has subsequently officially become that. In Irish education at that time, however, there was no standardised third level qualification which recognised the desire of people who wanted to work in youth and community work. Now there is a basket of choices in that regard but it was the RTC or IT sector that first developed that work. That is why it is frustrating when the drafters of various Bills before this House, of which there was an example a number of months ago, provide, at the behest of the Department of Education and Science, that there be a number of representatives of the third level sector on registration boards for particular areas.

In the past I and other Members tried to amend such provisions to allow equal representation of the IT sector to the university sector but the Minister and her predecessor were not amenable to that. When legislation is left vague the representatives tend to be drawn from the university sector rather than that of the institutes of technology. If we are serious about this legislation we must ensure equal recognition.

The question has been asked whether institutes of technology are equal among themselves. I welcome the provision in this Bill to declare the constituent parts of Cork Institute of Technology members of the institute as a whole. These include the Crawford College of Art and Design, the Cork School of Music and the National Maritime College. That an educational institution can be so broad in terms of the courses it offers, its qualifications, the number of students attending and the number of staff working there indicates there are differences between institutes of technology. A Bill such as this, with its one size fits all approach, may not properly address that.

It is important that the Higher Education Authority is given a remit to endorse qualifications and standards from institutes of technology. If we want to avoid the experience of Britain from the 1970s, where polytechnic colleges became universities lite, and to maintain the distinction between education in institutes of technology and universities, we must find a middle way between the practice where universities can award qualifications independently, but for the most part, institutes of technology must refer to a body such as the Higher Education Authority. Speaking parochially, and as a representative of a Cork constituency, the Cork Institute of Technology has the right to be a self-awarding institution, without assuming university status. I would like this Bill to have addressed questions like that because the third level sector should be as far from a one size fits all approach as possible.

What is the Government's priority? It is all very well to produce legislation that sets out a reporting and awarding procedure in a particular education sector but we also need to know if the Government is serious about allocating resources in a fair and proportionate way. There is a sense that, whether in primary, secondary, further, higher or third level education, imbalances exist, which this Government's policies seem only to exacerbate. The emphasis on fourth level education in the last budget risks leaving many people behind. We have unacceptably high levels of functional illiteracy and, despite free university tuition and education grants, access to education is still denied to many. Recent studies show that many years after the policy of free university tuition was introduced, as few as 8% of the people in the area immediately next door to University College Cork attend the college, which is not in my constituency but across the river. That indicates systemic problems with how people access education.

Where a person lives determines the type of primary, secondary, further and, if they are lucky, higher education they receive. The Government is failing spectacularly in that regard but is silent on the issue. Education adds to the individual for the benefit of society, but the education philosophy of the Government is still geared towards the economic rather than the social advantages.

In general this is a Bill that deals with technical details and tidies up some of the legal anomalies that put institutes of technology in a difficult situation. It constitutes, however, the bare minimum. I would like to have seen more boldness, innovation and radicalism, though I am not sure I want to encourage radicalism in this Government. There is another way to deliver education and if it was more evident on the benches opposite I would be more confident of having better legislation.

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