Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 3, to delete lines 14 and 15 and substitute the following:" "education provider" means for the purposes of this legislation an educational institution in the State which provides a programme of education and training at levels 7, 8, 9 and 10 of the National Qualifications Framework;".

I welcome Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, and I believe this is her first visit to the House as Minister. I noted that she was interviewed for the current edition of The University Times. In the interview, she reminisces about her time in Trinity College and says she was there with people such as Brendan Kennelly, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Owen Sheehy Skeffington and Senator David Norris. It is, therefore, a reunion this afternoon. The Minister stated:

... it was genuinely a very formative experience in terms of opening my eyes to a world that I wouldn’t otherwise, I think, have realised. A world of ideas, a world of your right to question things and I think that really was a positive experience.

At the end of the interview, she wondered whether we should "ease off the academic pressure a little bit and give more time for students to talk about ideas." The Minister is very welcome.
The amendments in my name support the Bill and are proposed in the spirit of being useful in bringing the Bill forward. Amendments Nos. 1 and 11 are grouped together, which I welcome. The issue is the wish of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, an eminent institution founded 230 years ago in 1784, to use the title "university" outside the country. I appreciate that is its wish. Certainly, its international educational standards support that. It is the largest medical school in Ireland and has approximately 3,000 students, approximately 80% of whom are from outside the European Union. The organisation has built up the reputation and status whose promotion is the object of this legislation. In passing, one would wonder about the need of the institution to call itself a university for some purposes and not for others. I looked up the top 17 universities in the world and noted approximately half do not use the title "university". An example is Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Oxford and Cambridge are primarily based on colleges. There is also the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.