Irish Examiner view: An empowering educational consolidation

The Munster Technological University — an amalgamation of Cork Institute of Technology and the Institute of Technology Tralee — will serve more than 18,000 students across six physical campuses

Mitchelstown students from Ballyporeen: Free school bus transport and secondary education were among the dynamics introduced in the 1960s by then minister for education Donogh O'Malley to radicalise the hopes and aspirations of the young in the Sixties. 

Nothing has changed and lifted this society as comprehensively as education. The announcement, more than 50 years ago, by then minister for education Donogh O'Malley that all schooling up to Intermediate Certificate would be free and that buses would be provided to bring rural students to their nearest school was the Rubicon moment in Irish society and education. 

That revolutionary decision in the democratisation of opportunity led, in time, to profound, once-unimaginable social change.