€97m funding to improve teaching and research

PROJECTS to help students with disabilities access and benefit from third-level courses are among dozens of programmes that will benefit from a total of €97 million in government funding announced yesterday.

The Strategic Innovation Fund spending will clear the way for 31 projects, of which all but one involve collaboration between two or more colleges.

The main criteria for awarding money were that projects should improve teaching and research, promote restructuring within colleges and support access to higher education for students from under-represented categories.

A deaf studies centre piloted at Trinity College Dublin will be expanded as a result of its application to the SIF. Its focus will include teaching sign language and making deaf studies available online, while it will also have links with an access programme being developed jointly by University College Cork and Cork Institute of Technology.

A programme at Athlone Institute of Technology to offer assistive technology for students whose first language is not English, or who have a specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia, is to receive €238,000. Such technology already exists for AIT students but the funding will help students in second level and further education colleges in the region.

Of the €97.1m being allocated in the second round of the SIF, almost €12m will help improve access for mature students, those with disabilities or who live in disadvantaged areas.

More than €55m will go towards improving teaching and research in the country’s universities and institutes of technology, who submitted their proposals to the Higher Education Authority last autumn.

Announcing the successful projects yesterday, Education Minister Mary Hanafin said the fund is driving reform of college systems to cater for growing student numbers, improved teaching and learning quality, ensuring graduates are equipped for a lifetime of innovation and change in the workplace and enhancing our research and innovation capacity.

Concerns about low uptake of science and higher-level maths by Leaving Cert students will be addressed by the creation of a National Centre for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching and Learning at University of Limerick. It will examine how to improve teaching methods to encourage greater student interest.

A key collaboration being funded is the Dublin Regional Higher Education Alliance, bringing together universities and institutes of technology in the capital and National University of Ireland Maynooth. Among its proposals are the marketing of Dublin as a global centre for learning.

A project led by Dundalk Institute of Technology will aim to ensure graduates of existing technology programmes have greater skills for business start-ups when they finish college.