IT SECTOR: In a submission to the National Qualifications Authority of Ireland (NQAI), the board of Tallaght IT has called for the requirements allowing students to pass from certificate to diploma and diploma to degree level to be reduced. If accepted, the changes will apply to all 13 institutes of technology in the State.
Until now, if a student failed an exam in a year in which they were due to receive a diploma, they would be ineligible to move on to the next level. If the Tallaght IT submission is accepted, a student who fails an exam and subsequently re-sits it, passing on the second occasion, will meet the criteria to apply for entry to the next level.
The submission also calls for the removal of the requirement that students must achieve at least a B- in all exams to qualify. In this case, if the student reaches the required GPA (grade point average) the particular grades won't matter - as long as they are passing grades. Students may also resit any subject they wish to achieve the required GPA.
In addition, at present a student failing a subject in the last year of his or her diploma is ineligible for entry to a degree course. The board of the college is calling for this impediment to be removed.
Secretary of the NQAI Séan Ó Foghlú says the authority has received "an awful lot of very interesting submissions from the ITs" on its discussion document on the national framework of qualifications, but it has yet to make a decision on any individual submission. "We are in the middle of a major process."
However, the issues raised by Tallaght IT are finding favour both within the NQAI and HETAC.
"The general policy is to open up opportunities for everybody," HETAC chief executive Séamus Puirséil says. "Capacity to succeed should be the main criteria for entry to any programme. We shouldn't put up artificial barriers for people."
Puirséil does not accept that the Tallaght submission would lead to the devaluation of awards and says students should be assessed at the end of the process. "You can get hung up on stopping people getting in instead of helping them get out the other end."
The NQAI is currently processing submissions from the ITs and hopes to produce an outline framework on qualifications and procedures for access, transfer and progression during the summer.
