‘Bridge gap between arts and sciences’

RESEARCHERS should spend more time teaching students and humanities subjects should be taught in all third-level faculties, a major report recommends.

The report to Education Minister Mary Coughlan on arts and humanities in higher education calls for mandatory undergraduate courses in these areas for students of degrees in all disciplines, including business and science. It calls for wider discipline combinations, such as technical or scientific subjects with courses in the arts and humanities, and calls for economic policy to focus on developing the contribution of the arts in areas such as creative arts, digital content creation and tourism.

Higher Education Authority (HEA) chairman Michael Kelly said the artificial divide in higher education courses between the humanities and the sciences must be removed.