Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

That is fine. On behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party, I welcome this legislation and assure the Minister the party will be constructive in its approach to this legislation in this House, as was my colleague, Senator Averil Power, in Seanad Éireann, where detailed debates took place on both Second and Committee Stages. When in government, Fianna Fáil gave a commitment to amalgamate the various qualifications and quality assurance bodies and that was the correct decision. This policy is being pursued by the Minister, Deputy Quinn, which is to be welcomed.

I believe the new authority and new structures have the potential to be a highly positive development for the education sector. The expertise and experiences that have been built up by the various bodies can be put to good use under the auspices of a single authority. The new authority will benefit from the synergies to be gained from the proposed restructuring. To my knowledge, there has been no credible criticism of the work of the bodies which are to be restructured. As the Minister noted in his opening remarks, they developed and became more successful in recent years and have contributed to and enhanced the further and higher education systems. The restructuring under consideration has been recommended in the efficiency review conducted by the Department of Education and Skills itself, in the OECD report, Towards an Integrated Public Service, as well as in the McCarthy report of 2009, which examined overall Government and public service structures and expenditure.

The new structures will enable the delivery of plans more effectively and more efficiently across the entire higher and further education sector. It makes ample sense that the providers of the courses will only have a single body with which to deal and this should lead to efficiencies on the part both of the authority and the providers. On numerous occasions, I have highlighted in this House, be it as a member of a party in government or in opposition, the need to minimise duplication and eliminate where possible overlapping of rules by different agencies. Institutions should have to deal with the minimum number of bodies rather than a plethora of agencies with unnecessary administrative costs. There is also the important aspect of ensuring that procedures are as much as possible simplified to make them more effective in terms of enabling progression across the system. There has been good progress in this country in the area of progression through the education system. As we all know, this progress must be continued.

The quality of our education is of huge importance from a social and economic point of view. Continuous improvement is needed. I believe that this legislation has the potential to assist considerably in this respect. Quality assurance must be uppermost in our deliberations. Quality assurance relates also to the student experience and ensuring they have the best possible experience of education. The procedures in place for quality assurance should reflect this. It is important that the voice of students and feedback from the student community is heard at all levels. Student representatives have an important role to play in making a positive input where the quality of courses is being considered. Over the years, some institutions have developed good procedures for involving students and quality assurance and view it as a positive which is how it should be viewed. We must be clear that partnership with learners is the best way to improve. It must be in every institution's interest to improve its systems. We have all learned from the recent university rankings that the quality of the student experience is valued internationally. It is a good decision to have a student representative on the authority. I welcome the Minister's affirmation this evening that a USI representative will be appointed to the authority. My colleague in Seanad Éireann, having been a student leader, would advocate that the Minister should appoint two student members to that eight member body. However, I will leave it to the Minister to decide on the number of representatives.

I understand that the authority's main role will be external quality assurance. I believe the universities have good internal procedures. The right balance between internal and external review needs to be achieved. Supporting self-evaluation is important, as is empowering leadership in institutions at all levels, be it at course, department or faculty level. Access, transfer and progression must be a key function of the work of the new authority. The merger of existing agencies must assist in this regard. As the Minister and I stated earlier, progression has improved. The qualifications framework developed by previous Governments has helped this process. The progress achieved to date needs to be built upon and to be given additional momentum. It will be incumbent on the new authority to publish procedures in regard to progression pathways. This will be extremely important and should be an early task for the authority. Indeed, it should be a priority for it. Clear paths to progression would help a huge number of students in the years to come. This progression must be as accessible as possible to the maximum number of suitable students. A successful progression system will enable us to provide greater access to third level for those students not in a position to gain entry through the traditional higher education route. Obviously, the international reputation of our education system is important. The authority will encourage education providers to provide for an international education mark based on their compliance with the code of conduct. It goes without saying that standards and integrity are of the utmost importance in this respect.

As I said earlier, this Bill will create a single agency, a new authority, which will enable consistency in quality and standards and the introduction of a more cost-effective service, removing any overlapping responsibilities. However, the Minister has decided not to dissolve the National University of Ireland, NUI, as originally proposed by former Minister for Education and Science, Mr. Batt O'Keeffe. Perhaps the Minister will in his closing Second Stage speech explain the reason for the exclusion of the NUI from the merger. If he cannot do so on the conclusion of the Second Stage debate, we could debate the matter on Committee Stage.

This Bill will create a new body, the Qualifications and Quality Assurance Authority of Ireland, QQAAI, which will consolidate services resulting in the dissolution of a number of bodies as outlined by the Minister. I, too, pay tribute to the work of these bodies, many of which were established in relatively recent times. Those bodies being dissolved include the Higher Education and Training Awards Council, the Further Education and Training Awards Council, the National Qualifications Authority of Ireland and the Irish Universities Quality Board, all of which have played an important role in the development of the further and higher education sector during the past decade and in some cases 15 to 20 years. The establishment of the new Qualifications and Quality Assurance Authority of Ireland and the development of this legislation was first proposed when former Deputy Batt O'Keeffe was Minister for Education and Science. As I said earlier, it had been intended that the NUI would be part of this new body. There has been significant progress in bringing greater coherence to how qualifications in Ireland were awarded during the past ten years. Prior to the enactment of the Qualifications (Education and Training) Act 1999 which established HETAC, FETAC and NQAI, there were more than 50 awarding bodies, including FÁS, Fáilte Ireland and Teagasc. It was appropriate that the number of bodies in this area was reduced substantially.

The remit of the new Qualifications and Quality Assurance Authority of Ireland will be to maintain the national framework of qualifications and deepen its implementation; to promote the framework in Ireland and abroad and raise awareness of how qualifications are organised; to review the policies and criteria on which the national framework of qualifications is based; to publish procedures and access transfer and progression; to advise the Departments of Education and Skills and Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation on national policy and qualifications and learning outcomes across life long learning; and to oversee the implementation of national policy on the certification of learning outcomes across life long learning and advise the Departments of Education and Skills and Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation on national policy on the cumulation and transfer of credit and on the recognition of prior learning, which are wide-ranging and important responsibilities. I welcome their consolidation in this new authority.

The Qualifications and Quality Assurance Authority of Ireland, QQAAI, will decide on the standards that must be met for an award to be given, and where standards are not met, on the removal of the validation of the programme concerned. The Bill also makes statutory provision for the external review of the effectiveness of the quality assurance procedures of universities. While the authority will not have a specific approval role for the quality assurance procedures of universities, the universities must implement the authority's directions following a review. Furthermore, the Bill empowers - this is another important provision - the authority to undertake quality reviews at a cross-institutional level. This can include reviews of a particular subject, award type or of provision on a regional basis.

In reference to his proposal to include the National University of Ireland, NUI, in this new structure, the former Minister for Education and Science, Mr. Batt O'Keeffe said in early 2010:

Since the enactment of the Universities Act 1997, the National University of Ireland has not been a federal university in any real sense. While the NUI supplies some shared services, all significant powers ordinarily associated with a university are directly assigned to the four constituent universities. They make their own awards and have their own quality assurance procedures which are externally reviewed not by the NUI but by the Irish Universities Quality Board.

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