When Charlie McCreevey announced the white elephant that was the government’s decentralisation programme in 2003, 12 of the 53 rural locations chosen, were within constituencies of government ministers. A clear case of party before country. Enda Kenny promised a new politics in Ireland, following the blatant cronyism and paddywhackery practised by Bertie Ahern & Co. However, cynics fears have been confirmed following the announcement that Carlow and Waterford Institutes are to merge and form a new ‘technical university’. Coincidently, Carlow and Waterford/Wexford are constituences of cabinet TDs Hogan and Howlin.
Last January the Hunt report into further education concluded that the state has more than enough universities. It looked at the subject of technical universities specifically and indicated that in time, once ITs had met the higher academic standards demanded of university status, some might be considered for conversion to universities. By implication Hunt concluded that ITs were not yet ready to be considered for university status. Logically, Dublin based ITs ought to be first in line for a status change, as they’ve been working towards this goal for some time.
On January 19th Education Minister Ruairi Quinn stated, “I do not want to devalue the level and quality of third-level education in this country by changing names.” He added, “There will be no political interference from me or my department in this matter. Otherwise we will devalue the whole third- level sector in the country.” It seems integrity is a word that some government ministers might be able to spell, but don’t know the meaning of.
No change there then.
At a time when the state is seeking to impose severe cuts in health and welfare spending and government bodies charged with re-skilling the workforce such as FAS are judged not fit for purpose, diverting scarce resources to a white elephant project consisting of political goodies for government and opposition TDs alike demonstrates a complete contempt for the electorate.
Have your say. Should Carlow and Waterford ITs be upgraded to university status?
Image: Wiki Commons: Mofoghlu
“A clear case of party before country. Enda Kenny promised a new politics in Ireland, following the blatant cronyism and paddywhackery practised by Bertie Ahern & Co. However, cynics fears have been confirmed following the announcement that Carlow and Waterford Institutes are to merge and form a new ‘technical university’.”
The real cynics are about to be confounded, by the looks of things. You know, those cynics who believed that vested interests would never allow equal access to university education in the south east. Those cynics who said that the continued emphasis on the qualifications of the institution (continually constrained by the IoT remit), over and above the needs of the people, would allow university elites to shoot down any university bid in perpetuity. The same cynics would point to the parochial lobbying that led to all RTCs, not just WRTC, being upgraded to IoT status in 1997, thus devaluing and disrupting a Waterford upgrade, and assert that “it will happen again”. (If the minister of the day had resisted parochial lobbying when WRTC only was earmarked for upgrade, there would not be an issue now.) These cynics think that there is one law for big political lobbies in Dublin and Cork, where there is an already an adequate supply or oversupply (Dublin) of universities in situ, and another law for the politically weak and divided south east. I hope *those* cynics are the ones who will be proved wrong. It is far from cynical to expect that, all things being equal, that there would be no significant sector of the country that is disadvantaged from the point of view of vital infrastructure. A perusal of the constitution of the Irish state — not of Waterford, Carlow or the south east — appears to hint strongly in this direction!
WIT (along with Carlow if that is the plan), which is older than UL and DCU, will advance quickly when it facilitated to do so, as those universities were when they were upgraded when they were a scant 16 and 14 years old, respectively. There are half a million people living in the south east. This is long, long overdue. The delay has been shameful, and it has been engineering by parochial and vested interests down through the years, allowing more ‘powerful’ regions to progress. So please, point the parochial finger somewhere else. The parish pump system has been a scourge for Waterford and south east. It is shameful that ‘ministers’ should be need to achieve parity.
Thanks for your comment. Just goes to prove that there are at least two sides to every story.