Technological University Groupings - What a load of...

veryangryman · 05-01-2023 04:10PM #1

Literally grouping places 100km from each other making it more awkward to locate a course if you're new to this game.

Do any of you 30-40 something guys remember your college saying they were applying to be a TU in their own right in the 90s, 2000s. This whole thing is a cop out where everywhere becomes a uni. If everyone is special, no-one is special.

Saying that, hats off Dundalk for not joining it (i'd hope and pray they still want to go on their own).

Imagine the chats you'll hear in LC students... "Where you going to college? Atlantic? Shannon? Munster?" Like what the actual frig.

05-01-2023 04:27PM

Yes, well done to Dundalk. DKIT has an specific interest in 3D Printing technology.

About the rest of your rant, OP: I was in Waterford Regional Technical College when it was renamed Waterford Insititute of Technology.

Oh, and then there was the 1997 General Election. The minister of Education, Norma Foley, was nervous about not getting re elected, but then, De De De, she had an brainwave: Make ALL THE OTHER the RTC's Institute of Technology too!!!!!

Some things never change.

Still though, Ms Foley lost her ministry. Ah well.

silliussoddius · 05-01-2023 05:18PM

My qualification from Pangea IT leaves me over qualified to respond to this.

Yurt2 · 05-01-2023 05:41PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120069540#Comment_120069540

Norma Foley was not Minister for Education in 1997, nor even a TD.

road_high · 05-01-2023 05:46PM

I think it’s a rebranding exercise- stick the word “university” in for a bit of glamour. Still they have their game substantially in the 20 years since I started college- back then it was looked down upon if you went to my local IT (Carlow) vs Dublin or cork universities. Not sure if the snobbery is as bad now but it was then. It’s seriously more affordable option too vs Dublin which was very expensive then, it’s eye wateringly so now

Yurt2 · 05-01-2023 06:19PM

Not all of the ITs were created equal. DIT was a university in all but name and the quality of education in there was as good as the universities in Dublin (significantly better in some fields to be honest. Their computer science graduates are excellent).

Some of the ITs were and are chronically bad though. Slapping the university title on them isn't doing any of them any good.

It'll all level out. Same thing happened in the UK when they renamed the polytechnics. Some like Robert Gordon and Nottingham Trent University are as well regarded as the red-brick unis, some are still a bit sh*te.

orourkeda1 · 05-01-2023 06:30PM

go on the technological university groupings

05-01-2023 06:31PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120069540#Comment_120069540

Norma Foley was a County Councillor in 1997, barely out of college. You're confusing her with Niamh Breathnach.

Donald Trump · 05-01-2023 06:39PM

What difference does it make? You can put lipstick on a pig all you want. The degree will still be from a sh1thole nobody cares about. SETU, TUD, UCD etc etc.

Yurt2 · 05-01-2023 06:52PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120070205#Comment_120070205

Are you a Harvard man yourself Donald? Are you working in the State Department still or did you join the gang in Wall Street?

If you're going to the reunion, tell that scamp J.D Winklejohn III that I still owe him a wet willy after he lost the bet at the Oxford boatrace.

Fast times, fast times.

Donald Trump · 05-01-2023 06:53PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120070273#Comment_120070273

He said you owe him more than that given the size of your wet willy. Don't shoot the messenger 😋

L1011 · 05-01-2023 06:54PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120069540#Comment_120069540

DKIT want to get the status without a grouping. There wasn't anywhere logical to group them to, anyway.

The Higher Education Authority requested the rename, not the Minister (who wasn't Foley, as pointed out, anyway)

Indeed, the RTCs wanted to be merged in to a single national Technological University at the time anyway!

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/all-change-for-the-rtcs-1.42414

lawrencesummers · 05-01-2023 06:55PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120069933#Comment_120069933

And still isnt

Yurt2 · 05-01-2023 06:58PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120070276#Comment_120070276

That's not Harvard talk. Clearly an Aggie or a Buckeye. Yuck.

Jarhead_Tendler · 05-01-2023 06:58PM

I think box room Don is doing T.Y

Donald Trump · 05-01-2023 07:02PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120070307#Comment_120070307

Now now, don't be touchy. I'm sure you are delighted to have received your paper from one of the aforementioned institutions 😉

Pherekydes · 05-01-2023 08:18PM

SETU does not stand for Search for Extra Terrestrial Universities.

Donald Trump · 05-01-2023 11:44PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120070653#Comment_120070653

They were going to steal the name SETI, but couldn't justify the "I" bit.

It actually now stands for Substandard Educators Teaching (Unsuccessfully)

veryangryman · 06-01-2023 10:32AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120070282#Comment_120070282

Athlone and Limerick have the same problem re: logic and they squeezed something out of it. They'd have been smarted bandying AIT with the Atlantic (we're closer to GMIT) and LIT with Munster (closer to CIT, ITT). Yes we're not on the Atlantic but neither is Letterkenny

06-01-2023 11:06AM

My understanding of the mergers of ITs was to give them more purchasing power as a larger entities, reduce duplication of courses in close proximity and to reduce headcount as people retire in roles that are now duplicated across the ITs. There is also now a drive to get industry investment into ITs that you would have typically seen only in universities.

I think the way they merged was a little strange, I would have though Athlone would have merged with Galway and not Limerick, but it appears the ITs were left up to their own devices.

Clareman · 06-01-2023 11:31AM

It's all about evolution and economies of scale.

Free secondary level education only came into existence in 1967, that might seem a long time ago but there are still people working who would have gotten an education because of it. When the secondary schools were setup there was 2 streams, academic and technical (techs in old world), RTCs in theory were more hands-on than universities but as they grew it was clear that the gaps were changing, for example when RTCs were setup they didn't do degree courses, it was clear that they were more than Technical Colleges, in fact some of them could have been argued to be better than some universities, to help show the difference they became IT's, personally I thought at the time they could have become Technical Universities but that's happening now.

It's clear (in my opinion anyway) that there are too many "universities" around the place, for example LIT had campuses in Limerick, Clare and Tipp, GMIT were in Galway and Mayo, Limerick has UL, LIT and Mary I, combining them to get some kind of economies of scale makes sense, for example does there need to be a different payroll department in every college, by combining multiple colleges into 1 you might get away with 1 in theory, in practice that will never happen in Ireland.

On a side note, academia is 1 of the most snobbish industries in the world, in Ireland alone there is a perception of different levels, the national universities think they are better than the others, the other universities think they are better than the IT's and the IT's think they are better than the others, this always comes up during elections when NUI graduates get a senate vote but no other graduates do.

veryangryman · 06-01-2023 11:44AM

The Senate is a bad advert for NUI. Get a degree and get a politician's job when you inevitably can't get the masses to vote for you

zg3409 · 06-01-2023 12:54PM

I got a 4 year degree in Waterford at the time it was an RTC. It was actually given by somewhere in the UK, I can't even remember where as they could not issue it themselves.

There was snobbery, people looking down on names. They rebranded them all. I dont know if the merging helped or not, it seemed to me to be like the HSE and regions all merging yet nothing changing except an extra layer of bureaucracy.

It is confusing the new names when some of the campuses are in different counties. I know people who applied for courses, accepted courses but still did not know which campus they were going to be based on.

Ficheall · 06-01-2023 02:14PM

Foreign students, who pay exorbitant fees, don't know what an IT is. They know what a uni is. That's about the height of it.

veryangryman · 06-01-2023 03:32PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120073671#Comment_120073671

Ah we had plenty of foreign students in the I.T days. I guess in the UK, the tans love calling college Uni. Hell I had a friend go over to the UK for a year. He returned and kept referring to the local I.T as "Uni" too.

He also took a long while to rinse out the "calling everyone 'mate'" thing too. Know your audience.

pjcb · 07-01-2023 12:47AM

I think its a great pity that DIT/TUD isn't offering diplomas anymore, there are so many level 8 courses about but not enough level 6 and 7

Jim 77 · 07-01-2023 03:22AM

Like any grouping, it only works if individual locations are prepared to cede control in one area and gain it in another. One location needs get the full group resources for teaching engineering, another for business, another for IT, another for medicine and health, another for tourism and hospitality, etc, etc.

Likewise for the administration of the grouping, one location needs to be responsible for HR, another for accounts, another for student affairs, another for facilities, etc. If it ends up being nothing other than a name change then it has very little benefit other than fooling people into believing that it's something that it's not and that deception will not last forever.