The introduction of a new national framework of qualifications places the Republic at the forefront of European policy on how learning should be recognised, the Minister of State at the Department of Education, Ms Síle de Valera, has said.
Announcing details yesterday of how the new system will operate, Ms de Valera said there was a need for a single coherent awards system that everybody could understand and use.
This could then be linked into international developments,leading to more coherence between national systems.
The new system will mean that higher education diplomas will no longer be awarded from September and will be replaced by ordinary level degrees.
It also means that anybody who now has a national diploma will be entitled to have it recognised as equivalent to an ordinary level degree.
"We need to ensure that the learning infrastructure in Ireland is optimally prepared to engage in European developments, and the streamlining of our qualifications system is vital in this respect," Ms de Valera said.
The portability of qualifications was "an important part" of the drive to improve European competitiveness, she said.
"We face growing competition and globalisation, and the implications of enlargement of the EU. All of this is occurring in a world of rapid economic and technological change," she said.
Programmes leading to the new higher education awards will be offered for the first time in autumn 2004.
The new award titles - higher certificate, ordinary degrees, and honours degrees - will be used in all universities as well as in the institutes of technology and other institutions using the HETAC system of awards.
Mr Paul Hannigan, chairman of the Council of Directors of the Institutes of Technology, said the council was particularly pleased that the three-year national diploma was being recognised as equivalent to an ordinary level degree.