Irish technological universities and the binary divide: a qualitative study
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Irish technological universities and the binary divide: a qualitative study Ludovic Highman 1
# Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract This article aims to examine and analyse the perceptions of senior policy-makers, lobby groups representatives and both higher education academics and professional managers on the establishing of technological universities in Ireland, and its implications for the fabric of the Irish higher education system, in terms of the structure of the Irish higher education system, academic drift and the diversity of Irish higher education institutions. Keywords Higher education . Technological universities . Binary system . Diversity . Differentiation . Academic drift . Mission drift
Introduction The Irish higher education (HE) system has traditionally been categorised as binary (Clancy 1989, p.117; Kyvik 2004, p.396), with the seven universities on the one hand, and the fourteen institutes of technology (IoTs) on the other, as well as a small number of affiliated providers linked to the universities (Hinfelaar 2011). The Technological Universities Act (TU Act 2018) established the legal framework to allow for a third type of Irish higher education institution (HEI) to emerge, namely the Technological University (TU). However, such a clearly defined tri-partite delineation is misleading. The creation of a TU requires the merger of at least two IoTs and prohibits cross-sectoral mergers between universities and institutes. The mission and ethos of a TU is required to be aligned and consistent with the current mission and focus of IoTs, one that is based on “career-focused higher education with an emphasis on provision at levels 6 to 8 and on industry-focused research”, with the expectation that this provision will be taken to a higher level (DES 2011, p.105). The Technological University of Dublin (TU Dublin) was created from the merger of three IoTs in January 2019. It is the country’s largest HEI (O’Brien 2018b), with some 28,000 students distributed on campuses located in Blanchardstown, Grangegorman and Tallaght.
* Ludovic Highman [email protected]
1
University College London, London, UK
Higher Education
More TUs are expected to be established, following a process of institution-driven mergers and independent reviews set against strict criteria (Hinfelaar 2011), as laid down in the TU Act (2018), a piece of legislation largely inspired by Marginson 2011). This article seeks to assess the potential implications linked to the creation of TUs for Ireland’s traditionally binary system of HE, and whether the Irish HE system is converging or not towards a unified university model of the likes in place in Spain or the United Kingdom (UK), or instead towards a trinary system of the likes that briefly existed in Ireland between 1972 and 1989, with the establishing of the two national institutes of higher education (NIHEs) of Limerick (1972) and Dublin (1980). The NIHEs were to provide for a higher level of technical education (HEA 1969, p.11) than that offered in the Regional Technical C
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