The Minister for Education and Science has rejected calls for Waterford Institute of Technology to be granted university status.
In a written reply to a Dáil question from Mr John Deasy (FG, Waterford), Mr Dempsey said: "The position in relation to Waterford Institute of Technology is that there are no plans to change the status of the institute." Mr Dempsey noted that the number of places and degree level courses at Waterford had been "expanded annually and incrementally in line with available resources".
Figures supplied by the institute indicate that in the region of 40 per cent of students enrolled on full-time certificate, diploma, degree and post-graduate courses are enrolled on courses at degree and post-graduate levels.
Mr Dempsey said: "These measures, combined with the change of title of the college, provide the necessary status and capacity for the institute to meet the identified higher education needs of the region over the coming years."
Mr Deasy's Dáil question followed on from the publication of a report by leading global educationalist Prof Malcolm Skilbeck.
Funded by Atlantic Philanthropies and commissioned by Dublin Institute of Technology, Towards an integrated system of tertiary education in Ireland said there was a case for establishing the Waterford and Dublin Institutes of Technology as "innovative, cross-sectoral, technological universities".
Prof Skilbeck wrote that two additional universities (in Waterford and Dublin) would challenge traditional assumptions about the nature of a university education.
