APPROACHING MY TENTH YEAR inside third level Irish education, now working down the road from the sign at left, I've seen some administrative practises that make me wonder. Above all else, I wonder why Irish universities and institutes of technology are not required to permit students to fulfill graduate requirements with a small sampling of accredited electives earned outside of their own campus locations. If the Higher Education Training and Awards Council laid down this idea as best practise, we would could possibly avoid the current logjam of applicants to want to earn a qualification in renewable energy. At the moment, students apply for enrolment in one place but if the course is full, they wait on a list. As we know from our frontline position at Tipperary Institute, programmes for renewable energy are fully subscribed. The Tipperary Institute programme is Ireland's longest-running (seven years now) and people are wait-listed. There are ways to solve the waiting list but from a higher level position there should be a way for the system to accommodate the desire of a student to upskill or reskill by starting the programme in one area and finishing it in another. This is normal practise throughout the United States. For up to two years, college and university students can often spend half of their timetables on elective courses that are approved by their academic advisors. In Ireland, specific restrictions exist that force students to return for an entire year when they fail a single module. I have never understood this restriction because it seems to fly in the face of the European model of ensuring students can finish a degree in as short as three years.
The Teachers' Union of Ireland could put this idea to government and show how it could work. If the procedure came to fruition, more students could enter the third level system every year. Lecturers would have more contact hours and productivity would increase. But as an extern with HETAC, I understand some of the institutional resistance. It boils down to a feudal system that seeks to ensure a protective cocoon around third level education as a revenue line first and foremost. Suggesting that some institutions may have to work together to split out fees paid could upset finance and administrative staffs. Yet the enterprise accounting tools of the trade, funded by Irish taxpayes, would make it relatively easy to handle payment for services when split between institutions.
I have less than 15 years remaining in productive work and don't expect to see cross-institution electives approved on university courses as standard practise in Ireland anytime soon. So I'm starting low on the feeding chain and setting up guest lectures from other third level academicians, arranging for those appearances in front of my classes via Online Meeting Rooms. I'll be blogging my experiences, hopefully gaining some advocacy along the way.
Dara Flynn -- "Renewable energy courses on offer" in the Sunday Times Education section, 1 Nov 09.
