This article is from page 2 of the 2012-02-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
CLARE could have its own university campus in the next five years if ambitious plans to create a Munster Technological University are given the green light by the Government.
The planned university would be made up of an amalgamation of the Limerick Institute of Technology, IT Tralee and the Cork institute and, with 25,000 students, would be the largest university in Munster. Be sides the main campuses in Limerick, Cork and Kerry, the university would have a presence in every Munster county except for Waterford – with Waterford IT already in amalgamations talks with Carlow IT.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny (FG) will meet with the presidents of all three institutes on February 22 and The Clare People understands that an official announcement on Munster Technological University will be made then.
Speaking to The Clare People yesterday, the President of IT Tralee, Dr Oliver Murphy, said that video conferencing and other new technologies could be used to build a Clare campus both quickly and cheaply.
“Video conferencing has become a very important resource for thirdlevel education.
“It is a great way of delivering lectures across a spread-out area and it is also very cost-effective,” said Dr Murphy.
“I would envisage a situation where we would begin delivering lectures to somewhere in Clare – in Ennis, let’s say – using video conferencing to begin with and then building it up from there.
“Once we have the technology in place, there is no reason why we can’t begin delivering lectures the other way around soon after, with someone based in Clare lecturing to students there as well as people taking part in these lectures in Limerick, Cork, Tipperary and Kerry.”
With 24,000 students and in excess of 2,000 staff members, it is envisioned that the Munster Technological University would be more effective in attracting both research funding and foreign, fee-paying stu- dents.
Involving all parts of Munster in the new university has been identified as a key part in its success.
“The Munster region quite naturally sticks together as a region and it also is a brand name that is clearly very strong,” said Maria Hinfelaar, president of LIT.
Former Mayor of Clare, Flan Garvey, has been the chairman of IT Tralee for the past 10 years and believes that this new project will provide exciting opportunities for the people of Clare.
“This just makes sense. If you have the numbers and you have university status then your chances of getting funding is greatly improved,” he said.