Part-time course fees 'block lifelong learning'

THE charging of fees to workers and unemployed people for part-time college courses is a barrier to lifelong learning, the president of Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) has claimed. Dr Brendan Murphy said it is unfair that many students on whom the country's economic recovery depends have to fund their own third-level education.

He was addressing a conferring ceremony for hundreds of graduates at CIT, one of the country's leading providers of continuing education and professional development in the country, as well as responding to the needs of job seekers.

"In this academic year, we have provided an extra 200 places from existing resources in courses specially designed and targeted at upskilling those on the live register," Dr Murphy said.

He also repeated his call for CIT to be designated as a technological university, as part of a unified system of higher education.

The college, along with Dublin and Waterford Institutes of Technology, have made separate applications for university status in recent years.

"We have proposed to the national review body on higher education the urgent need to establish a national technological university sector, consisting of technological universities in Cork, Dublin and Waterford, with the other 11 universities combined into a single technological university," Dr Murphy said.

"CIT does not wish to alter its educational mission or ethos, we will continue to be student-centred, driven by excellence in teaching, learning, innovation and research, and will continue to be industry and career focused," he said.

At conferring ceremonies yesterday and today, more than 2,200 graduates will receive qualifications up to research PhD level. CIT's long-standing partnership with UAS Darmstadt in Germany was marked by the presence yesterday of the university's president, Professor Maria Overbeck-Larisch.

Dr Murphy said an agreement between the colleges last year will mean many more PhDs being awarded for Irish and German researchers in a range of areas such as computing, media and electronic engineering.