Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 21 Jul 1971

Vol. 70 No. 17

Higher Education Authority Bill, 1970: Report Stage.

Professor Jessop

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 2, line 21 after "institution" to insert "including an institution dealing primarily with postgraduate education and research".

I have suggested this amendment because, having listened to the debate on a similar suggestion on Committee Stage and having read the report of it subsequently, I was not satisfied that I had got the point I wished to make clearly across to the Members of the House and, perhaps, even to the Minister. My previous amendment on Committee Stage referred to postgraduate students. The Minister, quite reasonably, said that the Higher Education Authority would have within their sphere of operations and interest in postgraduate students. The institutions of higher education that deal with undergraduate students have, of course, an increasing interest in postgraduate students. One cannot separate one from the other. Therefore, the Higher Education Authority must deal with postgraduate students in these institutions anyway.

As I said on Second Stage I was more concerned about certain institutions which have a primary and direct responsibility for postgraduate education and training and have not got any undergraduate students. These institutions are becoming increasingly important, particularly in the professional areas. They are very important in medicine and are becoming more important in engineering also. The institutions concerned have two functions: first, to regulate the standards of practice in the professions and, secondly, to prepare people for practice in certain specialist areas of the professions. They do this by organising courses and arranging examinations. These courses may be partly taken in the universities, where they will be covered by the operations of the Higher Education Authority, but very often they are taken in the institutions themselves.

I want it to be quite clear from the Bill, when it becomes an Act, that the Higher Education Authority has no discretion about whether or not it should entertain an approach from one of these institutions to be considered as rating perhaps for a grant under this Bill. I know that there is in the public mind a definite degree of confusion about these places. In the past they have not been very active in their operations, but in the future they are going to be increasingly active; indeed, their activity is increasing at the moment. If they are not catered for in this way, the interests of the community at large will suffer, because these bodies will not be able to carry out their functions in regulating the standards of people who are practising in the professions concerned. The amendment is a reasonable one. I do not want to delay unduly the course of the Bill through the Oireachtas, but I am quite satisfied that the Higher Education Authority must have quite clearly within its zone of operation the institutions about which I am thinking which may not have any undergraduate responsibilities at all but have definite responsibilities for education and training in the postgraduate area.

Mr. E. Ryan

This amendment is unnecessary and to some extent dangerous. There is nothing in the Bill which suggests that the kind of institution that Senator Jessop has in mind would be excluded from consideration. The danger is that when you specifically include a certain kind of institution, you raise the possibility that certain other institutions are not included. It could be argued that by saying "including an institution dealing primarily with postgraduate education and research", you would thereby eliminate from consideration by the Minister an institution which did not deal primarily with postgraduate education and research.

If the position is at the moment that the kind of institution which the mover of this amendment has in mind is not excluded, and there is no reason to believe that it would not be considered by the Minister, more harm than good is done by putting down this kind of amendment.

Mrs. Robinson

I should like to support this amendment put down in our names, despite what Senator Eoin Ryan has said. During the debates in the Dáil and in this House there has been considerable doubt as to whether the institutions of higher education would include postgraduate institutions. This would neither strengthen nor weaken the case of any other institutions which might seek to come in under the Act. It would not cramp the Minister's style but it would make the matter clear in the legislation. It is important that the institution could include the institutions which involve postgraduate students only and not undergraduates. The duties of the holder of an academic post are defined as: "to teach any students of the institution or to carry out research". This would clearly by inference include postgraduates students. This was one of the matters which was raised on the earlier Stages of this Bill. It both clarifies and confirms the fact that the institutions of higher education would include those either solely or largely devoted to postgraduate research.

Minister for Education (Mr. Faulkner)

It is clear from what Senator Jessop said in the beginning of his statement that in putting down the amendment he appears to harbour still some of the doubts which motivated him when he proposed, on Committee Stage, an amendment to ensure that the teaching of postgraduate students in an institution of higher education would reckon as a qualification for academic membership. Speaking on that amendment, I have already told him that the expression "student" included postgraduate students.

In relation to the designation of an institution, the Senator wishes to have written into the Bill that an institution dealing primarily with postgraduate education and research might be considered for designation by the Minister. I agree fully with what Senator Ryan has said in relation to that, that there is nothing in the definition as it stands to debar such an institution from being considered for designation, and that, therefore, there is no need to provide specifically for its inclusion. I also concur with him when he says that in this respect, if in a definition of this type specific reference were made to one of the classes of institutions covered by the definition, the implication may be drawn that other types of institutions which are not specifically mentioned are not covered, or perhaps are less fully covered. There is no need to make explicit in the case of one particular type of institution what is implicit in the definition as it stands.

Professor Jessop

There are only two kinds of institutions in higher education: undergraduate and postgraduate. There are no others that would suffer, if this amendment were accepted.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Professor Dooge

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 2, between lines 27 and 28 but in section 1 to insert the following subsection:

"() A reference in this Act to higher education includes research of a type normally carried out in an institution of university standing."

This would have the effect of making it absolutely clear that any reference in the Bill to higher education would include a type of research normally carried on in a university and appropriate to such an institution.

In the Act there are references in places to higher education and in other places to higher education and research. On the Second Stage of this Bill it was agreed generally that the Bill provides in the new Authority for Higher Education something more than a university grants committee of the type which has existed for some years in Britain. In section 10 of the Bill, in which the university grants committee functions, is enshrined the phrase "higher education and research". However, when we turn to the other sections of the Bill, which make the new Údarás something more positive than a university grants committee, which give them a function in co-ordination and in planning, which give them a function in promotion, we find that the phrase used is "higher education" alone.

It is clearly recognised that there are various types of research. There are types of research which are appropriate only to a university or similar institution of higher education. These are types of pedagogical research, of apprenticeship in research, which are essentially part of the training of a person who will seek a career in research work afterwards.

There are, on the other hand, types of research which, though not exclusively, are largely the concern of universities, basic research, non oriented research, though the tendency in large private organisations and State organisations is for more and more of this research work to be done there as well as in the university. There are types of research which are more appropriate to research institutes, whether public or private, than to the university—oriented research, ad hoc research and development work. In the drafting of this amendment it has been restricted to research of a university character. This has been done deliberately so that the adoption of this amendment would not interfere with any of our statutory research institutions and so that there would be no interference with the National Science Council either in the support or in the co-ordination of research.

Debate adjourned.