Greg Foley makes an excellent observation in relation to IT mergers generally, and the Carlow-WIT merger in particular – ‘It would be interesting to hear the rationale for all of this’.
It would indeed, especially as none has been given to date. The Hunt Report makes a few general points in favour of these mergers: that larger institutions can provide better services and take advantage of economies of scale (8.2); that ‘over the next twenty years, smaller stand-alone institutions will lack the scale required to deliver the necessary advances in quality and efficiency’ (8.5); and that merely designating existing institutions as universities achieves relatively little (8.7) – though since the government are currently passing legislation doing precisely that in relation to the RCSI, we might question whether they really believe what the report says.
All this is true, if very unspecific. But the Hunt report also gives various alternative mechanisms for achieving the same benefits, particularly regional clusters (8.4) and general collaboration between existing institutions (8.6). In addition, it lists other policy objectives that would inevitably be subverted by the creation of larger merged entities: flexibility (9.2), responsiveness to local needs (5.3), and diversity of mission (8.3). We could also add that seeing institutional change as the answer to every problem is a frequent managerial vice, and at the very least we should appreciate it if alternatives were considered.
How all of this is to be applied in particular instances is not spelled out. It may be that IT Carlow (or IT Blanchardstown, or IT Tralee, or …) is such a small institution that it is not viable in the long-run – but no public case to that effect has been made. Even if true, it is certainly not obvious that this should be allowed to prejudice the position of significantly larger institutions such as WIT (or DIT, or CIT, or …) – either we believe in diversity of mission or we don’t. Even if IT Carlow’s size is a problem, it’s not obvious that it is WIT’s to solve.
The point is that no public reasoned case has been made out for any of this – we simply see the minister lecturing IT heads about the need to stick to the rules, while saying nothing to make us think the rules are good ones. If there is a rationale for this blanket policy – no technological university without prior merger – then it hasn’t been given.
The Blogmeister