All Ireland Society for Higher Education
| Name: | O'Flaherty , Neil |
|---|---|
| Email: | noflaherty@wit.ie |
| Institution: | Waterford Institute of Technology |
Mission Impossible? Evaluating the binary divide in Irish Higher Education. This paper will examine the structure of Irish higher education with a view to ascertaining how the progressive elimination of the significance of the binary divide is failing the student population rather than enhancing opportunity. An analysis of policy documents and institutional mission statements will be used to explore where the sector is failing to provide the appropriate level of diversity within higher education and training opportunities. The extent of mission drift within the sector - particularly since the Skilbeck's University Challenged 2001 and the Qualifications Act 1999 - which, it will be argued, is espoused by HEI's in the absence of any widely agreed proxy by which to measure quality, will be examined and its effects considered. Issues of funding levels and of institutional esteem which are at the centre of the binary/unified tension will be considered and possible solutions considered in the light of experience elsewhere. While anti-binarism fits neatly into a post-structuralist agenda and arguably facilitates the resolution of politically obstinate resource allocation conflicts, it will be argued that a binary arrangement appropriately resourced and evaluated is the configuration best suited to a system of largely state-funded, massified higher education provision. This paper will be of particular interest to those who are concerned with the critical analysis of higher education policy in general and to those who grapple in their work environments with the question of whether our system is `too binary or just not binary enough'.
(Abstract ref: #39.)