Leading educator Prof Hyland to be honoured
Professor Áine Hyland retired as vice-president of University College Cork late last year. She will be remembered particularly for her work leading national groups on major education issues.
Most notable among these was the Commission on the Points System which reported to the Government in 1999, while more recently, she chaired the Government’s educational disadvantage committee whose 2005 report strongly informed recent policy in this area.
Since being appointed to head UCC’s education department in 1993, the Bridging the Gap centre she set up has worked with students in some of Cork’s poorer communities and encouraged many of them go on to third level education.
The central work of the education department has been transformed since Prof Hyland’s arrival from a mainly teacher-training role to a research-focused department.
Prof Hyland’s early career was in the civil service with the Department of Education, where her late husband Bill Hyland was chief statistician and a driving force behind the introduction of free second level education in 1966. In the same year, Áine obtained an arts degree from UCD, where she had attended as a mature student after the ‘marriage ban’ forced her out of her civil service job.
She later worked as a second level teacher, then at Carysfort College of Education in Dublin and UCD before moving to Cork 14 years ago. During her time in Dublin, she was instrumental in helping to found the Educate Together group supporting multi-denominational primary schools.
Born in Athboy, Co Meath, Prof Hyland has three daughters and is also a proud grandmother.
Tonight’s civic reception at Cork City Hall was agreed by members of Cork City Council, in recognition of her work in education.
“Áine is the most distinguished educator of our generation and, through Bridging the Gap, she reached out to children in disadvantaged schools,” said former teacher, Cllr Mairín Quill.
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