Joanna Tuffy (Labour)

Hopefully they will get votes in their own right if we implement the reform of the Seanad. One thing about the institute of technology sector and the DIT in particular that has always impressed me is the way they have widened access to education and the flexibility they offer students. The DIT has led the way in this regard over the years. Access and flexibility are buzz words in current discourse about third level education. The DIT and individual colleges like Kevin Street and Bolton Street were promoting access and flexibility long before these words entered the discourse. I worked in the registration section of Bolton Street and was aware of people who went from being trades students to certificate night-time students to full-time degree students to postgraduate students. The DIT has led the way in terms of offering that type of flexibility and opportunities to people to avail of education.

I studied English as an undergraduate student at Trinity College, Dublin, where I was a student of Senator Norris. I remember how Trinity College was largely closed at night and at weekends but DIT colleges were open at night and on Saturdays. DIT colleges offered programmes during the summer. I remember studying French at the DIT during the summer when I was a primary school student because the Kevin Street campus was training teachers to teach languages at third level.

There are issues that the DIT still needs to take on board which I will discuss later. Regarding the Bill, the idea of strategic planning, the setting up and staffing of the agency and the drawing up of a plan is the right type of approach for this type of development. I have experience of that approach with Adamstown in Lucan, which was designated by the Government as a strategic development zone. An overall approach to planning for the area was taken instead of the traditional piecemeal approach. It is a far better approach. It is worthwhile taking the same approach with the Grangegorman campus and it is important to involve the community.

With regard to access, the Minister said that the college has already established links with some schools. It is important to make such links and I hope the college builds on them. When I worked in the DIT, there was a great deal of work on access for students to third level courses from PLCs and transitionary courses. At the time, there was a one year course for women who were interested in engineering and would not necessarily have had the traditional qualifications, such as mathematics and so forth. The course was a type of bridge which the institute tried to provide. The institute has done much work in that regard and I hope it does more. A great deal more must be done.

This will offer a great opportunity. It will be in a part of the inner city where there are low participation rates. The ultimate aim of the DIT should be to have its core student population drawn from the inner city. Look at what happens in other areas. When a college is established in a rural town, one will discover after a certain number of years that a large proportion of the student population will come from the surrounding area. If the area previously had a bad participation rate, it now has a better rate. That has always been a geographical factor in participation rates. In addition to one's background, participation is linked to the proximity of a college. City colleges such as TCD and DIT could do more to ensure they attract the local population as a core part of their student bodies, including people from all backgrounds.

When working in the DIT, I also helped administer the ESF grants. The Labour Party conducted a study of the impact of the introduction of free fees in third level education. It found that not only did this increase participation rates in college from every group in society, albeit at a slow rate, but it also reversed the trend of falling participation rates in particular social groups before 1998, as mentioned in the Clancy reports. We analysed the figures and discovered that the participation rates in certain lower middle income groups, that is, salaried employees and so forth, had been dropping. However, one of the steps that reversed that drop was the introduction of ESF funding. That was then improved by the abolition of third level fees. That is shown by the data that are available so far. There is some dispute about it and we still have to see the next Clancy report on its impact but, again, it was the institute of technology sector that led the way in increasing the access of different social groups to third level education.

The Minister mentioned the move to modular delivery of education. That is important because this has been identified by the OECD report, the report of the task force on lifelong learning and various other reports as the way to proceed. The other important issue is the need to do something about the fees regime for part-time students. Both the OECD report and the task force on lifelong learning have recommended that part-time students be treated in the same way as full-time students with regard to fees. That recommendation should be taken on board.

The task force on lifelong learning set out a certain cost for this, which was approximately €23 million, but it said this could be offset by the cut in tax reliefs and in other ways. Furthermore, if one moves to a more modular and credit-based delivery of education, one blurs the distinction between part-time and full-time studies. If colleges are funded per credit instead of per course, it is possible to facilitate that type of development. It also covers the cost of offering free fees to part-time students.

A number of places in full-time courses have already been advertised as vacant by the CAO. Those places could be filled by part-time students who could study those courses during the day, although still on a part-time basis and with the agreement of their employers. It would not involve extra costs because the places and courses are already funded. It simply means part-time students would fill the places.

It is important to have a modular and flexible delivery of education when dealing with the access issue for people who have already finished the primary and second level stages of education. A huge percentage of people did not get further than intermediate certificate in their education. The way to attract them into the education system is by providing a more flexible model of education and by removing the barrier of third level fees. That model of education would also assist people who drop out of the full-time system. It would give them the option of transferring to part-time studies to complete their course instead of dropping out.

Deputy Jan O'Sullivan tabled a parliamentary question to the Minister recently on my behalf. It asked for the breakdown of the number of students studying full-time courses and the number studying part-time courses in the universities and institutes of technology in 1997, 2002 and 2004. One disappointing figure relates to the Dublin Institute of Technology. The most recent year for which figures were available was 2003-04 and the Minister's reply showed that the number of part-time students in the DIT in the academic year 1997-98 was higher than the number for the academic year 2003-04. That is despite a slight increase in the number of full-time students and the increase in population of Dublin and the greater Dublin area generally, as a result of immigration, migration from the rest of the country and so forth. That is not a good trend and the college should examine ways to reverse it.

However, that trend it is not necessarily the college's fault. It also relates to the huge cost of delivering part-time courses and the need for the Government to resource colleges properly to do it. It must fund them in a way that incentivises colleges to provide flexible, part-time learning. The Minister and others have spoken about the need to build up a knowledge-based economy. That is the reason this type of study is so important. It is a danger signal when the number of part-time students declines. It has happened not just in the Dublin Institute of Technology. The number of part-time students in all the institutes of technology in the Dublin area is dropping. That is not a good sign and something must be done about it. The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Martin, recently announced another report on the need for skills in a knowledge-based economy. He does not require another report. All the recommendations and analyses are available in reports such as that of the task force on lifelong learning.

I disagree with the point made by Senator Henry. I do not believe the Dublin Institute of Technology should become a university. This arises from a mistaken premise that it is somehow better to be a university. That is an outdated point of view. Institutes of technology are and always have been equal to but different from universities. Furthermore, they do so many things better than universities, such as access to education, flexibility in education, the use of their buildings, applied research and vocational education. A study conducted during the recession, when I found it difficult to get a job with an arts degree from Trinity College, found that students from institutes of technology, which were then regional colleges, were more likely to gain employment because of the nature of their qualifications.

There is also the important role of the DIT in trades. We do not want to be like other countries that have gone backwards in regard to trades and find they have no tradespeople. For example, Spain is trying to reverse the neglect of trades education. I hope the DIT maintains a strong role in this regard.

As a university graduate, I am not being critical of the universities. However, in terms of the most important factors, such as access, it is not the DIT that should follow the universities but the other way around. That is what is happening. The universities are considering what the institutes have achieved and have copied them, which is the way forward and how it should be. The universities have learned from the imaginative policies of the institutes of technology over the years and built on them.