IPPN

Published: 11 January 2011

Tánaiste launches the National Strategy for Higher Education
- Implementation of strategy to significantly change Ireland's third level landscape with establishment of Technological Universities and provision of equal support for full and part time students -

The Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills, Ms. Mary Coughlan, T.D., today launched a strategy that will see the transformation of Ireland's higher education sector over the next two decades. The National Strategy for Higher Education to 2030, which has been endorsed by the Government as the future blueprint for the sector, was developed by a High Level Group under the Chairmanship of Dr Colin Hunt. The Strategy sets out changes for the sector that are aimed at providing for:

• a more flexible system, with a greater choice of provision and modes of learning for an increasingly diverse cohort of students;
• improvements in the quality of the student experience, the quality of teaching and learning and the relevance of learning outcomes; and
• ensuring that higher education connects more effectively with wider social, economic and enterprise needs through its staff, the quality of its graduates, the relevance of its programmes, the quality of its research and its ability to translate that into high value jobs and real benefits for society.

The Strategy recommends a number of significant structural changes that are aimed at supporting these objectives, including:

• having a smaller number of higher education institutions of greater strength, critical mass and governed according to international best practice;
• providing for the establishment of Technological Universities;
• restructuring and strengthening the Higher Education Authority;
• providing for a sustainable system of funding to allow for further growth and development;
• changing the funding model used to allocate resources to and within institutions to ensure all students, whether full-time or part-time, on-campus or         off-campus, be supported equally;
• ensuring that public funding is more aligned to national priorities and needs;
• ensuring a more performance oriented system, with much more transparent flows of data;
• requiring greater interaction between our higher education and enterprise sectors; and
• ensuring much greater assessment of the wider outcomes and impacts of the higher education sector, together with strengthened accountability for  institutions according to agreed performance contracts.

Speaking at the launch the Tánaiste said: "This strategy contains detailed recommendations for the development of a modern, flexible and responsive higher education system that is ready to meet the new challenges of the next twenty years in supporting Ireland's economic renewal and growth. It envisages a system that is more accessible to a much greater range of people, is more engaged with the enterprise sector and wider community and has high quality and innovative provision of teaching and research as its hallmark.

Full Story: www.education.ie