Now we will proceed to the Regional Technical Colleges Bill, 1991 and the Dublin Insitute of Technology Bill, 1991, the Second Stages of which are being taken together in accordance with the Order of the House. The Minister need only formally move the motion in respect of the Regional Technical Colleges Bill, 1991 at this stage although the debate will cover both Bills.
Regional Technical Colleges Bill, 1991: Second Stage.
Acting Chairman
I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time". In May 1989 I introduced in this House Bills to confer university status on the then National Institutes for Higher Education at Limerick and Dublin. These were historic Bills since they established the first universities since the foundation of the State.
The two Bills before the House — Dublin Institute of Technology Bill, 1991 and Regional Technical Colleges Bill, 1991 — are no less historic since they mark a stage of development of the non-university sector of higher education which warrants putting it on a statutory footing and vesting more authority and responsibility in the individual institutions in the conduct of their day to day affairs.
At the outset I would like to sketch out in broad outline the historical context in which our present system of technical and technological education evolved. An organised system of technical instruction did not develop in Ireland until the early years of this century. However, a number of individual institutions were making contributions in this field from the second half of the nineteenth century.
The Samuelson committee on technical education in Britain published their report in 1884 in which they pressed strongly for the expansion of technical education in Ireland with State support. The State's role in providing financial assistance to technical education was recognised for the first time under the Technical Instruction Act of 1889 which empowered local authorities to provide financial aid for such education out of local rates. The local authority system in Ireland at that time was less than satisfactory and in the event only 12 of the 228 local authorities which could have given grants for technical education did so. I suppose they suffered from lack of money as we do today; history has not moved that much.
The report of the Recess Committee in 1896 called for reform and recommended that technical education should be the responsibility of a new Government Department to be established to administer State aid to agriculture and industry. This Recess Committee was part of the conservative movement to kill Home Rule by kindness. The people here were to get some very worthy measures like the Light Railways Act, the Technical Instruction Act, the Congested Districts Board Act and others. With these we were to be tranquillised and become subject to orders from across the water. What happened was that we took into our hands all the powers we got and kept marching onwards.
This committee also recommended a new type of second level school for agriculture and practical industry, the establishment of evening and continuation courses for those at work and the setting up of higher technical colleges. It is interesting that a view of this committee that the development of practical education was essential for the economic development of the country has not changed in almost a century.
The Local Government (Ireland) Act of 1898 set down the framework for a more organised local authority structure for the country and enabled the new county and borough councils to levy rates for the support of technical education. This Act, coupled with the Agricultural and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act of 1899 which established the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction as envisaged by the Recess Committee of 1896 are two of the great landmarks in the development of technical education in Ireland.
This Act defined technical instruction as — instruction in the principles of sciences and art applicable to industries and in the application of branches of science and art to specific industries or employment.
As well as the Department itself the Act provided for a board of technical instruction to advise on all relevant matters submitted to it by the Department. The councils of the county boroughs, urban districts and counties, set up local statutory committees which prepared schemes of technical instruction for their areas for approval and provided the necessary local funding which was a prerequisite to securing financial assistance from central funds. The system of a combination of central and local funding and control which has served us well over the years thus came into being.
Let me dwell on the history of this. The history of technical instruction and education and how it all came about is remarkable. This is the first occasion since the Vocational Education Act, 1930, that we have been able to have a debate on matters such as this. It is, therefore, useful to dwell on the past. It is very good for us to look back on what was done to draw inspiration from those early steps forward. I know I digress a bit, but this is a chance for us all to look back. I hope the Bill will be not so much leisurely but not frenzied and that we will all have time to contribute to it.
At the turn of the century when we had the Local Government Act, the Recess Committee and the Technical Instruction Act, in the time of Horace Plunkett and the co-operative movement, people of enterprise and endeavour were attempting to bring to local communities a spirit of self-reliance and self-help. It was a remarkable achievement in the Ireland of the times. There was very great poverty but there were the stirrings of the nationalist movement, the flowering and renaissance of poetry, writing, drama and all that. It was a time of realisation that much endeavour and enterprise rest on the potential of people with their own activities and their own ideas to help one another and to help the local communities.
In 1922 technical education came under the Department of Agriculture and in 1924 it became the responsibility of the newly established Department of Education. A commission was appointed in 1926 "to enquire into and advise on the system of technical education in Saorstat Eireann in relation to the requirements of Trade and Industry". They reported in 1927 and the main recommendations of the Commission on Technical Education formed the basis of the Vocational Education Act of 1930. This Act retained the concept of a combination of local and central control and funding and established the system of vocational education as we know it today.
Technical education was seen as having two main purposes, to train young people for entry to particular types of employment as well as to improve the skills of those already employed. Each vocational education committee established under the 1930 Act was to provide or aid the provision of technical education in its area. Technical colleges which existed in the main cities since the last century and to which is owed much of the present thrust and pattern of technical education, were brought under the control of the new vocational education committees.
The sixties saw a major thrust in the development of technical education with the publication of Investment in Education in 1962 and Training of Technicians in Ireland in 1964. The then Minister for Education, Dr. Patrick J. Hillery, in May 1963 signalled the Government's intention to arrange with appropriate vocational education committees for the provision of a limited number of technical colleges with regional status. In September 1966, a steering committee on technical education was established to advise the Minister generally on technical education. The 1969 report of this committee formed the basis for the establishment between 1970 and 1977 of the present network of regional technical colleges. The steering committee broadly defined the role of these colleges, and by implication the role of other technical colleges as being to educate for trade and industry over a broad spectrum of occupations ranging from craft to professional level, notably in engineering and science, but also in commercial, linguistic and other specialties.
The steering committee related the colleges to economic growth both nationally and in their own particular regions. They saw a distinction between the demand for technical education and the need for it and they held the view that the regional technical colleges would provide one means of stimulating demand for skills which the economy needed. This general view led to a strong emphasis being placed on the need for continuing adaptation of the colleges which would be determined largely by initiatives at local and national level.
This adaptation has in fact happened. In the early years most of the work of the colleges was concerned with leaving certificate and other second level education as well as apprentice and technician training. The development of the colleges over the years has seen a phasing out of second level education, a scaling down of apprentice training coupled with an increased involvement in certificate, diploma and degree level courses.
The growth of the colleges has been phenomenal. In the period since 1980 wholetime student numbers in the regional technical colleges have risen from 6,500 to almost 20,000 an increase of over 200 per cent. In the same period wholetime enrolments in the colleges of the Dublin Institute of Technology have risen by over 100 per cent from 4,000 to 8,600. The Vocational Education Committee third level colleges therefore have over 28,000 wholetime students which represents about 40 per cent of the present total enrolment at third level in the country. Provision for part time study has always been a significant feature of the work of these colleges. The extent of their contribution in this area can be judged from the fact that part time students, including apprentices, account for over 20 per cent of the wholetime equivalent student numbers in the colleges.
In the 21 years since the first of the regional technical colleges was established — Athone and some of the others are celebrating their twenty-first — they have developed and adapted to the stage that they can truly be said to have come of age. One now comes of age at 18 but it is a nice analogy. These Bills represent in a symbolic sense the key usually associated with such an event. They are the key to greater autonomy, to self-governance and to an improved and more effective interaction with business and industry which is a vital function of third level institutions in the modern world.
These concepts are of equal importance in the Dublin Institute of Technology which was formally established in 1978 by the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee on an ad hoc basis to bring about better co-ordination of the work of its six third level colleges. It would be wrong however to date the development of technical and technological education in Dublin from this time.
Perhaps we should look back briefly on their features also. The origins can in fact be traced to an artisans exhibition on the site of the present Concert Hall in Earlsfort Terrace in 1885 when it was suggested that the premises might be used to provide education for the working classes in the city. After great deliberation it was decided that more suitable accommodation for a school of the type envisaged was to be found in Kevin Street, where the present college stands. Financed by public subscription and aided by a grant of £500 from the Dublin Municipal Council, it was opened for classes in October 1887.
The additional funding available following the establishment of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in 1899 led to a rapid development of technical education including the setting up of the Technical Institute in Rathmines in 1902. In 1904, the Dublin Technical Education Committee took over responsibility for the Municipal School of Music and in 1907 it was housed at its present location at Chatham Row.
The premises at 18 Parnell Square were acquired in 1906 and became a centre for commercial education and domestic economy. In that year also the approval was given for the building of a new technical institute at Bolton Street which opened in 1911. Over the first half of this century these Dublin institutions developed a wide range of technical courses, mainly on a part-time basis.
A further significant input to the ongoing process was the establishment of the Commission on Technical Education which reported in 1927. This report, as I have said, provided the basis for the 1930 Vocational Education Act which was to prove very enlightened legislation, facilitating all the developments in technical and technological education which have taken place in the Irish vocational education system since then.
It would be remiss of me at this point not to pay tribute to the originators, framers and deliberators on that Bill. It has always been said, and I freely acknowledge this, that that Bill was most amazing legislation. If it was noted for one thing it was the flexibility inherent in it which enabled the vocational educational committees to be set up — that was its purpose — and build on the historical events we spoke about earlier. They were enabled in the decades which followed to push out their boundaries. I read the debate on that Bill and little did the legislators in 1930 envisage that 60 years later we would be talking about vocational education committees catering for 28,000 third level students many of them studying for qualifications of university standard. One wonders if the boundaries of the Bill have been pushed out with great imagination in many instances but I do not think so. While they could not possibly have envisaged in 1930 what was going to happen in third level education the form of words used and the flexibility inherent in them, the spirit, thrust and intent of the Bill facilitated all the developments which have taken place. I would like on this historic occasion to pay tribute to the originators, the framers and the legislators of 1930 who brought in that legislation.
The late forties and early fifties saw the development of the first wholetime post leaving certificate courses in the DIT colleges. The increasing pace of technological change brought new demands in the sixties when a series of full-time technician courses were established for the first time in Ireland in response to the requests of a number of major employers.
The seventies were a period of considerable progress for the Dublin colleges. Several new programmes were established and the numbers of both wholetime staff and students increased significantly. The foundations for the establishment of the Dublin Institute of Technology were laid in 1970 when a joint academic council was set up to co-ordinate and oversee the third level academic work of the individual colleges with a membership comprising appropriate senior academic and elected members. In 1975 a partnership agreement was signed with the University of Dublin, Trinity College, under which degree awards are made available to successful graduates from a number of the higher level courses. An Apprenticeship Board was set up in 1976 to co-ordinate and oversee the work of the apprenticeship sector, and in 1978 the Dublin Institute of Technology was formally established by the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee to co-ordinate the work of the six colleges. The major extension to Kevin Street College was completed in 1987 and I had the pleasure of opening a major new extension to Bolton Street College in September 1990. Planning is ongoing on the new college to be built at Bishop Street to accommodate the colleges of commerce and marketing and design and most recently when I opened the DIT Information Technology Exhibition, I saw at first hand the developments in the computing area reflecting spectacular growth in demand for computing resources in the colleges.
The DIT now offer a very extensive range of courses at apprenticeship, technician, degree, professional and postgraduate levels. As I said earlier, there are currently over 8,000 wholetime students and some 15,000 part-time day and evening students, including 5,000 craft apprentices enrolled. Some would claim that this makes it the largest education institution in the country. Certainly, more people applied this year for a course in the DIT, through the CAO/CAS system than to any other institution.
The wider activities of the institute include a number of special centres to provide specialised training and computer based services to industry and an increasing involvement in research and development. Reflecting on the current position and on the history of technical and technological education in Dublin over the past century as I have outlined it one cannot but commend the wisdom of that enlightened group of people who came together after the 1885 Artisans' Exhibition and decided to establish courses for the working class people of Dublin to improve their general education and skills.
They would, no doubt, be astounded and proud of the institute and their activities today, their commitment to providing a wide range of courses that are relevant to the needs of industry and society as well as those who enrol in them, the institute's ability to respond to changing demands and new technological advances, the continuing availability of part-time and evening courses and their links with the community they serve.
As the institute prepare to enter their second century of educational endeavour — and indeed in the year in which the College of Music celebrates their centenary and the College of Catering their Golden Jubilee — it is particularly appropriate that the tremendous achievements should now be marked by this Bill which will establish the institute on a statutory basis and through its provisions facilitate the continuing development and progress of the institute.
I will outline shortly to the House the provisions of both Bills as presented but I would like, at this juncture, to refer in particular to the Dublin Institute of Technology Bill and to say that colleges of the institute have been making their own academic awards for over 40 years. Industry and the professional bodies have recognised these awards and accepted them for appointments to professional positions and admission to membership of professional bodies. The high standing of the awards is attested to through national and international recognition. This proud tradition is recognised in the Bill through the provision that the functions of the institute shall include power "to confer, grant or give diplomats, certificates or other educational awards".
The special relationship with the University of Dublin is recognised also and will no doubt develop within the terms of the provision in the Bill that the institute may enter into arrangements with any university in the State for the purposes of having educational awards conferred, granted or given. This link is further marked by the provision that a member of the new governing body shall be nominated by the University of Dublin.
The changed nature of the activities of the Vocational Education Committee third level colleges over the years has led to concern about the limitations placed on them in having to operate under the 1930 Vocational Education Act. This Act, since it relates predominantly to second level education, is inappropriate to third level institutions in the way they must operate today.
The International Study Group on Technological Education — the Hardiman report — was presented to me in 1987, about four or five months after I came to office. I think of it with great fondness because it was very brief. There were three main thrusts in their recommendations, that the two NIHEs — one in Dublin and the other in Limerick — should become universities and this has been achieved. Indeed, the legislation in this regard passed through the House on the day the Government fell. We are all talking like that nowadays, let us hope that nothing of that kind happens when debate on this Bill is concluded. However, it is scheduled to be debated for weeks so we need not worry. The third recommendation was that the Dublin Institute of Technology should be a statutory body and there were also recommendations in regard to the regional colleges.
This Bill does not go as far as the Hardiman report envisaged, which was the breakaway of the colleges from the Vocational Education Committee structure and giving them independence in the fullest sense. We debated it, I thought about it and discussed it at Cabinet level and with various interests. My immediate predecessor in the Department of Education, MEP Paddy Cooney, before he left office, brought out the heads of a Bill giving effect to some of the Hardiman recommendations with regard to the Dublin Institute of Technology which clearly set out their separation from the Vocational Education Committee system. I am not making a political point in that regard, I am just outlining its evolution. When I came to office I studied the heads of the Bill and the speeches and preparations in relation to it. I was strongly of the opinion that these colleges very badly needed a measure of autonomy, to have a statutory basis for research and development and to be freed, in an everyday sense, from the apron strings. However, the Vocational Education Committees have served them well and they have served the Vocational Education Committees well, we thought that there should be a balance between the separation envisaged in the Hardiman report and the Cooney Bill and the total inclusion under the Vocational Education Committees. I hope we have got the balance right; it remains to be seen.
The International Study Group on Technological Education were fulsome in their praise of the way in which these institutions have fulfilled their role and have become a significant and vital element in higher education. The group, nevertheless, pointed out the difficulties about the legal basis for the involvement of these institutions in research and development work for business and industry and recommended that statutory provision be made for them. These difficulties were further highlighted in the NBST discussion document Barriers to Research and Consultancy in the Higher Education Sector.
Activity in the research consultancy and other industry and business linked areas is an important element of the role of higher education institutions in contributing to national development. The lack of adequate statutory provisions to allow the regional and technological colleges to engage fully in these activities represents a serious problem. The Bills as presented seek to address this problem in two ways: first they seek to strike a reasonable balance between greater freedom and autonomy for the institutions in their day-to-day operation while maintaining traditional links with the Vocational Education Committee system; secondly, they will enable the institutions to engage in research, development and consultancy work for business and industry as well as to enter into arrangements, including participation in limited companies, to exploit the results of this work.
While continuing to play a vital role in the provision of highly skilled personnel essential to our evolving industrialised economy, the institutions will also be able in the future to increase and improve their interaction with business and industry and reach their full potential in contributing to national technological development. In this context the contribution made to business and industry by the highly skilled staff involved must not be forgotten. Suitable arrangements will have to be worked out so that they, too, can benefit from the innovative and enterprising approach they bring to the provision of much needed services to the business and industrial community.
Debate adjourned.