Madam, - Danny O'Hare's commentary headed , "Why are students not making themselves heard?" (Education Today, April 19th) ignores the reality of student union activities around the country, and seems based largely on the inactivity of the union in his former college.
The reality of the student movement is the promotion of all students' interests. Students elect representatives to sit on teaching and learning committees, consultative committees and quality review panels; at a higher level, representatives sit on governing authorities; and nationally, HETAC, the NQAI, the Irish Universities Quality Board and the Higher Education Authority all have members from USI.
Whilst I fully expect the European University Association to report positively on quality assurance procedures here, I am certain that the failure of colleges to engage with students will be shown to be a primary shortcoming - one that the Union of Students in Ireland has been highlighting for five years now. Our strategy of "one foot under the boardroom table, another on the street" still works today.
Dr O'Hare affects to assert that students' unions are inactive on the issue of access; in fact, unions see this area as the prime battleground in education here, and have gone to the barricades more than once this year.
This an issue on which the Government has been slow to understand, but one on which unions within the USI have been agitating consistently. - Yours, etc.,
BEN ARCHIBALD, President, Union of Students in Ireland, Grattan Street, Dublin 2.