Higher Education Authority hits out at slow changes to universities entry systems

“Lamentably slow” changes by some universities to first-year entry systems have been criticised by the head of the Higher Education Authority (HEA).

At a forum on third-level and legal developments at Trinity College Dublin, Tom Boland said students finishing school are being forced into increasingly narrower subject choice options that deny them a broad first-year experience focused on developing critical thinking and analytical skills.

“National policy supports change, but again, implementation is for the universities, and it is lamentably slow, even contradictory, in some quarters,” he said.