Degree programmes ‘too narrow’

THE country’s newest university president has challenged his academics and other universities to widen the focus of degree programmes to continue meeting the needs of employers.

Professor Don Barry, appointed University of Limerick’s president in May, told staff and students in his inaugural address yesterday that the undergraduate curriculum has hardly changed in the three decades since he studied science at University College Cork (UCC).

He warned that employers are seeking graduates with a wider experience of different disciplines than the narrow specialisation with which some students are emerging from colleges.