The number of school-leavers is likely to drop by almost a quarter within the next 15 years, meaning a new era of competition for students between third-level colleges, the chairman of the Higher Education Authority predicted yesterday.
Dr Don Thornhill, in a speech on the future of the sector, also said the traditional role of lecturers would be transformed by the Internet. He said this was because colleges could "import lectures and teaching materials" from the world-wide web.
Dr Thornhill gave the example of UCD's Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business possibly buying lectures and materials from Harvard or Stanford universities over the world-wide web. He said they might do this rather than "addressing the provision of teaching themselves".
He said Irish colleges might also consider franchising out their lectures and teaching materials.
He was speaking at an international conference in Dublin Castle on "Challenges for the Millennium", which concentrated on the future of higher education.
Regarding competition, Dr Thornhill said: "In the future, universities and the institutes of technology will have a much more diverse population of students than was the case up to now and there will be considerable challenges in meeting these needs."
He said one of the reasons the numbers of young people entering third level would fall was the counter-attraction of the labour market, which had already caused the numbers of school-leavers entering third level to fall from 43 to 39 per cent last year.
He said a report compiled recently estimated that 114,000 (which is close to the current level) was the number of people required in third level at any one time. While the HEA would keep it under "constant review", this was the figure currently informing debate in the area.
However, he said this report also pointed out the need to bring 10,000 mature students into the third-level sector.
Ms Maureen Gaffney, chairwoman of the National Economic and Social Forum, said universities should receive public monies only if they met clearly stated goals in relation to wider access and life-long learning.