Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming into the Seanad for this very important discussion on the technological university sector, the changes that have been happening over the past decade and how they will play a part in the higher education landscape, nationally and internationally. It is important that we also thank the staff, students and governing bodies of all the institutions involved, such as the THEA, or Institutes of Technology Ireland, IOTI, as it was previously, the people in the Department and my former colleagues in the Higher Education Authority. This has been a decade-long process to develop the technological universities. One of the greatest successes we have had in this country is providing opportunities in education. We do not often appreciate the change that has happened from the time when access to higher education was very much for the elites. Now, the highest ever number of school leavers are going on to higher education this year and those numbers will continue to grow.

I welcome the progress we have seen with regard to TU Dublin and I congratulate Munster TU. The Minister will not be surprised to hear me raise the question of the technological university of the south east, which he has been working hard on delivering. There is a consensus in the south east that this needs to happen, not just because we are the only region without a university, but because a university is essential to driving the economic and social development of a region. A commitment has been made by the Minister and all the players, including IT Carlow and Waterford IT, that we will have designation on 1 January 2022. That is a target on which we must continue to be focused. It will be a multi-campus university and if the Minister is the one cutting the ribbon, I hope he will do it in Carlow and Waterford but also in Wexford. Other alliances are being formed and while we need North-South co-operation between all our institutions, I would like to see the Connacht-Ulster Alliance develop closer co-operation with the Magee and Coleraine campuses in the context of a shared island and this should be explored further.

I ask the Minister to respond to or consider a number of specific areas. The Technological Universities Research Network does not have student representation. That must be addressed. There must be input from students and researchers in that network. It is essential that we focus on building the research capacity within our technological universities. They have been doing a very good job but in the new competitive world, we need to look at doing that further. The recurrent funding allocation model, RFAM, must be reformed to allow that to happen and to allow for more focused research funding as part of the RFAM. I welcome the Minister's comments on the borrowing framework, which is certainly important for the sector. We have to remember that these universities will be working together. They are not competing with each other any more. Universities and higher education institutions are now competing internationally and they have to be able to operate on the international stage. That requires us to build further international collaborations.I hope - and the Minister has given an indication that he will do this - that with, for instance, the more than €80 billion in EU funding that will be available over the coming years, we will have more Irish representatives in Brussels to be able to target that funding and to build partnerships with other European institutions, particularly in a post-Brexit scenario, where our comfort of often falling back on relationships with UK institutions might not be as easy, although it is essential that we continue to build those strong bilateral relations we have between our higher education institutions here and those in Britain.

Furthermore, there will be a challenge for the TU sector in particular because it has a very strong tradition of lifelong learning and because of its role in apprenticeships and so on. However, because of the technological revolution we are now experiencing, every single one of us will need to upskill and reskill. We have to be conscious that we will be looking at short courses and microcredentials, and because of its experience and its regional reach, the TU sector will be ideally placed to facilitate those. I ask, therefore, that a clear strategy be set out as to how our higher education institutions will help to prepare our citizens for the technological revolution we are experiencing. This will mean upskilling and reskilling during our lifetimes.

The access agenda has always been the success of the regional technical colleges and the institutes of technology. In many ways the traditional universities were slow to catch up in addressing the access agenda. The regional technical colleges, RTCs, and institutes of technology, IOTs, however, and now the technological universities have very strong records of offering opportunities in higher education that had not been offered to many sectors of the community heretofore. There certainly still are major challenges around socioeconomic access to higher education. The statistics from the HEA show in the case of UCD and Trinity that only about one in every 20 students comes from what is classified as a disadvantaged background, whereas the institutes of technology have an extraordinary record and are far more representative of the community as a whole. It is really essential that as part of the development of technological universities, the record of the good work they have done on access both for those in socioeconomic disadvantage and for mature students and students with a disability is continued.

The final comment I will make concerns the question of governance and this applies not just to the TUs but to our universities generally. The role of universities in society is now vastly different from what it was 50, 60 or 70 years ago. The 21st century will be the century of the battle for talent. We can talk about the Irish economy being based on tax and talent only for so long. Yes, we defend on the tax side but the battle this century is about talent. The technological universities and the traditional universities will be the driving force and the engine at the centre of this. Their governance structures must be equipped to drive this, and their mission must be aligned with that drive. This is the rationale behind the Minister's Department. It is preparing us for the future and for driving that change. His Department cannot be simply an administrative Department, and I think he knows that. We have seen a real and renewed commitment to the technological university sector in the recent past and I believe that any work the Minister does will receive the full support of this House.