Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I assume that the purpose of Senator Barrett's amendment is to address his concern that this Bill will somehow allow or require the authority to interfere in the academic life of universities in terms of how they organise their programmes of education and research and how they quality assure those programmes. The authority's role on quality assurance in previously established universities and providers in general will simply be to act as an external quality assurance agency to periodically evaluate the effectiveness of a university's own internal quality assurance procedures. There is no intention on the part of the Minister or the State in the legislation to somehow allow anything further than that and for the qualifications and quality assurance authority of Ireland, QQAI, to go into areas in which it has no expertise to assess the quality or otherwise of tuition, research or any other aspect of university life, other than to periodically assess the universities own internal quality assurance procedures which universities themselves find valuable within educational provision as a whole.

This mirrors the review provisions currently set out in section 35 of the Universities Act 1997 with the authority replacing the governing authority of the university as the review body. In 2002 the seven university governing authorities, including the board of Trinity College, established the Irish Universities Quality Board, IUQB, because they rightly acknowledged the importance of ongoing quality assurance assessment of the work they do in each of their institutions. They passed the review function under the 1997 Act to the IUQB in recognition of the importance of the external review of quality assurance. Since 2009 the IUQB has evaluated six of the seven universities under the Universities Act, most recently Trinity College in March of this year. The authority will continue the role of the IUQB in that regard. No change is suggested in the relationship between the IUQB and the universities in terms of how the review process is carried out and on the level of detail it goes into in the internal functioning and daily life of the university.

Section 28 requires universities to prepare quality assurance procedures. The Bill also provides that any quality assurance procedures already in place under the 1997 Act are carried forward to meet that requirement. These procedures include long-standing university-organised or internal quality assurance procedures such as the external examiner system which is an internal quality assurance procedure, as the university itself selects those examiners. The involvement of external subject matter experts is a central and important feature of a university's internal quality assurance procedures. It is fully acknowledged that the community of scholarship does not end at the walls of the institution and it is only experts in the discipline concerned that can really judge the academic value of assessment work in research. The authority's institutional level review role does not in any way seek to replace that function. However, the authority, in reviewing the effectiveness of a university's overall quality assurance procedures, would examine whether external examination and peer review are being universally applied and that systems are in place to ensure that reports and recommendations arising are properly considered and acted upon. In doing so the authority will use its expert international review panels sourced from outside the authority's own staff. Similarly, student involvement in quality assurance processes is of critical importance. The student view cannot be side-lined or ignored by institutions. However, academic staff have a right to fair treatment and any human resource implications that might arise from quality assurance processes will be handled under existing and well-established procedures. Academic tenure and terms and conditions of employment are not affected in any way by the Bill and there is no need to place an exclusion in the Bill in this area. It is important to note that any new quality assurance procedures established by a previously established university in accordance with the Bill will not require the agreement of the authority, unlike for other relevant providers. Instead, previously established universities will be required to consult with the authority and this reflects the traditional autonomy of universities. With regard to subsection (2) of the Senator's amendment, nothing in the Bill limits in any way the academic freedom or tenure established in the 1997 Act, as that Act remains intact, save for the deletion of section 35, which is largely recreated in Part 3 of the current Bill.

Senator Barrett spoke previously about reaching out to international investors and students to encourage them to invest in and study in this country. In recent months I have visited a number of Asian countries where we have a strong and fruitful relationship with many third level providers in that region. One of the reasons the relationship has been so fruitful and strong is that it is recognised in those countries that we do have very high standards of quality assurance in place. High quality degrees and qualifications which are recognised internationally as being of the very highest standard come about for many different reasons. One of the reasons they are respected internationally is because we have stringent quality assurance procedures in place across all of our educational provision. I do not see any rationale for somehow excluding universities from that process. Therefore, I cannot support the Senator's amendment.