Minister expects AIT to better share resources

Athlone IT and other third level institutions will have to put "territorial" concerns aside and work together more closely in order to get by with decreased financial resources, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn said last week. When asked about the possibility of some ITs being forced to merge in the future, he stated: "We need to be looking at the number of courses we have across the country to see how a college like Athlone, for example, could combine with other colleges on certain courses. "AIT will stay as AIT, GMIT will stay as GMIT, but maybe together they could offer the same course in a certain area. That kind of efficiency and productivity is really what we are doing. "It's probable that we have, in some cases, too many courses coming from too many colleges." The Minister said it was important that institutions did "not get territorial about it.... Does it matter where a student gets a PhD or an MA if they get a good one? Does it matter if they start in AIT or GMIT?" Collaboration in areas such as third level education was a necessity, as "this country has lost control of its chequebook. We can't continue the way we were going." And he said it was "far too soon" to think about any Institute of Technology being upgraded to a University. "It's not envisaged that an existing Institution would be able to change its name unless it changed the substance of what it does. We're a long way from any of the ITs moving into that space," he said. However he pointed out that: "What Athlone IT is doing in terms of research, and having post-doctoral research and all the other sorts of things, is way beyond the original concept of what a Regional Technical College and then an Institute of Technology was. This place is doing very, very well." Minister Quinn was speaking shortly after the official launch of Athlone IT's Research Hub on Thursday last.