Sean Barrett (Independent)

Section 38(4) states:

Each awarding body in the State shall, in respect of each award the body makes that is recognised within the Framework, ensure that a learner acquires the standard of knowledge, skill or competence associated with the level of that award within the Framework before an award is made.

It is being done already. That is the point I have been making since the debate began. The degrees, the lecturers, the research and the graduates are all internationally recognised. There is a conflict here. That is what I am trying to do on behalf of the students and that is what we are accomplishing. What the Comptroller and Auditor General found the exercise trying to do is completely different. It is promoting managerialism. The heads welcome this and want more meddling, more bureaucracy and so on. It is stated on page 124 of the report that it "has resulted in better management information for senior institutional management [The important people are those who teach the courses, not the senior institutional management] and better feedback ... for institutional governance". No governance is necessary. One needs a good lecturer and attentive students. The rest is overhead and gobbles up money because the average pay is two or three times that of those who do the lecturing.

The report goes on to say: "In addition, significant restructuring has taken place in each university both in terms of academic structures and in terms of administration and management structures." The quality of the lecture and the relationship between the lecturer and the student are not being monitored, and the gobbledygook of managerialism is being promoted instead. The report states further: "As part of this, information from the quality review process is being brought together with other evidence such as that from institutional research offices to ensure these feed into the strategy development and change process." Managerial gobbledygook has no place in a simple transaction of transmitting knowledge from one person - we hope the lecturer has more than the people in the class - to another. If they are doing that already, there is no need to have people intervening. Of course, the bureaucrats in the universities want better institutional management and all the things the Comptroller and Auditor General found, but it is a waste of money because it is aside from the exercise. Are Irish degrees are acceptable worldwide? Yes is the answer, overwhelmingly so. Therefore, why not reduce the expenditure on the public purse by accepting the amendment?