Scrap the IT's

[riven]

1 some ITs that are very good despite the lack of mandate to do research (cork IT in computers for example).

2 all new IT appointments to have a PhD or evidence of research expertise and all IT staff to do research. That however, the latter, would require more staff as the teaching load is high as it is and good research doesnt come with high teaching loads.

3 it wont happen.

1. No dispute. And potentially this is a waste of resources. We have much expertise but are not using it.
2. I do not agree. I have seem a multitude of PhD that attain the level but are a bunch of crap in terms of producing something viable. PhD is a mechanism to attain a certain level but unless it is focused properly it is not viable medium-long term research which is what is usually required industrially.
3. I agree but just proposing.

Wombat. I think the need for refocusing is correct. I would ask further how many lecturers in the IT field have industrial experience that is less than 10 years ago for example? I see in maqny IT that the low turnover of staff eradicates the industry expertise that is initially brought to the table.

Barry. You pick a single example. I could say supercomputers and unis win hands down. I have visited 5 IT and 3 universities (engineering and chemical laboratories) and my opinion is that the uni are better equiped in terms of safety and equipment standards.

And if one looks at the research and research relatd outputs one finds that the ITs are.....?

Very little which is another reason why I believe that IT are not meeting their mandate to provide engineering and science degrees. Further it is a waste of resuorces (see above)

Wombat In adjunct to this I do not believe it is better teachers. Many IT have excellent teachers. It is the focus that is incorrect and brings about this failure. You can work in an IT essentially for the next 40 years and never go beyond the information contained in txt books. Txt books of course take approx 10 years (in science anyway) to turn over. IT in this form are not working.

Bobert:
They are providing a level of science teaching that is not t the forefront of their mandates. The numbers in courses clearly show that some of the ITs have more arts/business etc studnets than science and engineering students.

And GMIT leads or is renouned in which field? Are we talking ton 10 in its field according to funding and publication?

CIT and WIT have applied for uni status. In CIT for example there are more non-science students than science students. When looking at coloberating with the college this concerns me and to me, shows that science is not a priority of the college. Therefore the mandate goes down the drain.

Moving to smaller towns is not the answer as it is difficult to move all the existing facilities.

General comment. Ireland is a tiny country with a tiny student population and an underachieving (as linked to funding recieved for projects and publications) research community. My idea would be to group our expertise in to more focused units which would allow us to produce more and better quality research. We have to remember that in a field like Chemical Engineering our total population in Ireland is equilavent to many single universities.
We need to do this because IT and universities (from my experience) are not very good at collaborating extensively (there are several example but in general). Thus our expertise is not being utilised to its full potential.

[evercloserunion]

The original mandate for the institutes of technology was to provide education with a focus towards science, engineering and trades (in support of FAS). I believe that the IT are no longer meeting this mandate and are therefore superfluous as an individual entity. My reasons are as follows
1. Name me a single IT that has a European renounced science research group/profile? I cannot
2. The courses offered by most IT's now include more business and humanities than any other sector including Engineering or Sciences.
3. The remainder of science and Engineering courses are in general offered by the universities and these uni facilities are usually better equipped. (In Engineering I believe that they are not better taught though)
4. IT's are not required to advance the state of research. As a lecturer you can simply be a teacher and do not have to do research. I believe that this is not inline with international best practice (where a certain percentage of research is always required).
5. Several IT have applied for Uni status and are clearly ready to reject the mandate.

Some good points there, but I'm not sure they lead to the conclusion you say they do. ITs serve a very valuable purpose in the education system; several, in fact. The main one is that they do provide high-quality level six and seven courses with lower entrance criteria, and I'm not sure how much they still work in conjunction with FÁS but even if it's not much this relationship could easily be revived. In general, they provide very valuable opportunities to many low-income families who may not have had access to the best of education, and of course to the higher earners who for whatever reason did not score highly in their leaving cert.

They also, as you point out, teach very good engineering courses. It is indeed a shame that these courses aren't as well equipped as they could be. My solution would be to scrap a lot of the business- and humanity-based courses (leave that to the universities) and use the money used to fund them to invest in better equipment and facilities for the engineering and related courses (architecture, architectural technology etc.). It might also help to cut (albeit slightly) funding for the engineering and related courses at universities. This would both save money which could then be spent on IT courses, and make IT courses more attractive relative to university courses in this area.

Regarding your third point, it's important to point out that ITs do have some courses which are not taught in universities, or which are taught vastly better than in universities. An example of this would be architectural technology.

My solution is to merge all existing IT's where possible with the closest regional university. Where this is not possible (Waterford maybe though there could be a southern university, Dublin university, University of the west etc) the institute could be considered for uni or technically uni status.
The reasons for this are to allow the congregation of expertise within Ireland that exists in many Science fields. However currently this expertise is poorly communicated on an Irish (never mind European) basis.

It's not necessary to merge all ITs with Universities, which would be quite a big move and, I suspect, cost quite a bit, not least in the way of legal formalities. All that is required to encourage further congregation of Irish scientific expertise is to make provision for the same. Holding conferences, funding joint research initiatives, creating an incentivised lecturer/post-grad exchange program between ITs and Universities and other such measures would bring about the same result without having to take the drastic action you suggest.

ITs, of course, should still be able to apply for university status and merge with local universities if they so desire.