Professor Ellen Hazelkorn - Restructuring Irish Post-Secondary Education – 1970s to 2023
Over the past 50 years, higher education (HE) in Ireland has been seen as the primary route to personal and career success while further education and training (FET) is seen as second best. This has created a situation where 91% of students complete secondary school, of which ~70% participate in HE. In contrast, only about 20% attend FET. Ireland ranks third in the OECD and second in the European Union for tertiary education attainment. But this success has also led to an imbalance in the postsecondary system and other challenges.
Over recent years, the policy objective was to diversify the higher education landscape by redesignating regional technical colleges as technological universities. Now, the government is pursuing a strategy for a unified tertiary system for learning, skills, and knowledge, whereby, irrespective of where learners enter FET, HE, or a research career, they are in a single system that responds to individual talents, ambitions, and motivations. Why has this approach been taken, and what are the challenges?
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Professor Ellen Hazelkorn
Professor Ellen Hazelkorn is Joint Managing Partner, BH Associates education consultants. She is Professor emeritus, Technological University Dublin (Ireland), and Joint Editor, Policy Reviews in Higher Education. She is member of the Advisory Board and Research Management Committee, Centre for Global Higher Education, University of Oxford, and Research Fellow, Centre for International Higher Education, Boston College. Ellen is, inter alia, a member of the Quality Board for Icelandic Higher Education, the EU Higher Education for Smart Specialisation (HESS) Advisory Group, and the Committee for Strategic Advice, EURASHE - the European Association of Institutions in Higher Education.
Of relevance to this session, Ellen was policy advisor/board member of the Higher Education Authority (Ireland). She was a member of the Commission for the College of the Future (UK) and the Tertiary Education Future Initiative (Royal Society of Edinburgh & Young Academy of Scotland). She reviewed Post-Compulsory Education in Wales recommending the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research (CTER), now being established by the Welsh Government. She recently developed the 5-year Higher Education Policy and Action Plan for Lebanon (Ministry of Education & Higher Education/UNESCO) and was UNESCO Lead/Coordinator, phase 1, CFIT project to develop higher technical education in six African countries (2021-2025). Ellen is currently advising the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS) (Ireland) with respect to Progressing a Unified Tertiary System for Learning, Skills and Knowledge.