No, not with regard to these particular people; that is what I gather. This is all an indication of what is done or what it is hoped will be done. The governing body of the University College will have the final decision in the matter, and nobody can bind that body until that matter comes before them formally. I am dealing with what I understand is accepted by most of the governing body of that College and I do not think there will be the slightest difficulty about it. Nobody could state with certainty, until they have passed some sort of resolution or set up some sort of rule approving of this, that it actually will be the case, but I have not the slightest doubt that this will be done and that an arrangement will be made, both by way of attendance at courses and presentation of written work without attendance at courses, where an associate wishes to proceed higher.
With regard to the existing associates, that may be interpreted in another way. The present student of the College of Science, who normally would have in the next year or two got the title of associate, has been taken over by the University. Most of those people are scholarship-holders, and most of them were warned in the last couple of years, when entering for the scholarship, that they would most likely continue and finish in the University, and their scholarships were given to them on the direct understanding that they were fully acquainted with the likely change, and they made no objection. Again, these people will be catered for by a degree, which in most cases will be the Bachelor of Science degree. So that as far as the associate student is concerned— the man who is partly through his course—he will be taken into the ordinary university system and at the end crowned with a degree if he has continued up to the examination. The associate who wishes to proceed higher will have his way open to something higher also.
With regard to the type of man who ordinarily would have become a student for the associate examinations, that student for the future will enter into the ordinary university system, will have to matriculate in the ordinary way and proceed towards his degree. Non-associate students are more difficult, because they represent the casual student who picked his own courses, attended lectures given by certain professors, and finished by getting a certificate of attendance at those lectures and of proficiency in the subject. But the university system certainly allows for that. University College, Dublin, is very anxious to attract students to the college, and there is already known in that university the practice of students attending at lectures without being matriculated in the university. If the certificate of the professor seems a desirable thing, and if the student's conduct in class warrants it, that certificate can issue in the particular case. So that, in so far as a non-associate student attending lectures and getting a certificate is concerned he will be met by exactly the same type of treatment. He need not matriculate; he can pick his course as he likes, attend professors' lectures, pay fees as was entailed in the College of Science, and get, if he so requires, and if the professor thinks he deserves it, a certificate of attendance at the course and of proficiency in the subject.
As to the question of those who proceed to what is called the diploma as opposed to an associateship or a degree in the university, the university system again provides for these. I think Cork University College has already established a course leading to a diploma in journalism. A person has to be matriculated to enter for that, and four years, I think, is the course for it. The old Royal University used to issue a diploma in engineering. That has lapsed recently, but the diploma may be given. It is at the disposal of the Governing Body of the college.
Deputy Thrift raised a question as to a reciprocal arrangement that existed between the College of Science and Trinity College. He described that in more detail by saying that there are certain arrangements under which a course can be taken out in Trinity College and completed in the College of Science, and certain courses can be taken out at the College of Science and completed at Trinity College. He asked do these simply come to an end or was there any proposal to continue their operation. These do come to an end in a technical way, as the College of Science ceases to exist. A scheme in particular that was approved by the Board of Trinity College and the Department of Agriculture in June, 1922, will definitely come to an end. But if I had been asked by Deputy Thrift what was the likelihood of that old arrangement of June, 1922, being re-made as between University College, Dublin, and Trinity College, I should say that there is every likelihood of that being re-arranged for or continued. In other words, if Trinity College wishes, in the case of students who have attended a course in Trinity College, to make it part of their regulations that attendance over a particular year at a course in University College, Dublin will count towards the completion of that course in Trinity College, then the authorities of University College, Dublin, will offer no objection to that arrangement. The old arrangement technically comes to an end with the end of the College of Science, but there is every likelihood, in fact the greatest possibility, of a new arrangement, put to University College, Dublin, being taken up by them.