Are institutes of technology better than universities?

If facts can challenge prejudice, then this was a good week for institutes of technology.

Amid fresh concerns about employers discriminating against graduates of particular institutions, the IoTs had something to really cheer about when they were shown to outperform many universities in different competencies.

The new EU-sponsored U-Multirank placed TCD and UCD at the top of the pile domestically for traditional research strengths but in areas such as industry collaboration, "interdisciplinary publications" and artistic output there were some surprising results.

Step forward, then, Letterkenny IT as a pretender to the crown of Ireland's best – or at least most-rounded – higher education institution. In U-Multirank, it pulled off an A in creating spinoff industries, compared to Cs for UCC and University of Limerick, and an A in art-related output compared to a C and E for the two Irish universities evaluated under that heading.

Both commercially minded and artistically creative, it seems Letterkenny IT also has the best teachers in the country. Its drop-out rate is by far the lowest nationally, with only 4 per cent of students failing to progress from first year to second year in degree programmes. This compares to 20 per cent plus in Waterford, Cork and Tallaght ITs, according to the latest Higher Education Authority (HEA) figures.

Is Letterkenny IT too good to be true? Its performance in these criteria highlights a potential weakness in the data in that all relevant statistics are self-reported by the institutions themselves. U-Multirank and the HEA only tot up the numbers they’re given.

Moreover, there are several ways to read results. Is Letterkenny IT’s extraordinarily low drop-out rate an indication of good teaching or easy marking?

There is a genuine concern about grade inflation at third level. However, the manner
in which HEA board member and tech entrepreneur Paddy Cosgrave chose to ignite the debate lacked a certain degree of tact.

The TCD graduate and founder of The Summit web event announced that in recruiting to its internship programme it would only consider those who had got a first-class honours degree, with the exception of Trinity where a 2.1 would be acceptable. “A 2.1 in one university would not equate to a 2.1 in another university,” he said.

His views are to be discussed at a HEA meeting next Tuesday, and many members of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) are urging its representative on the board to seek Cosgrave’s removal.

The truth is, though, Cosgrave’s opinions would garner some support privately in universities where there’s understandable pride in their intellectual heritage and the quality of their top-end research. (You’ve heard of “Trinners for Winners”?)

There is, indeed, a justifiable form of elitism but there is a thin line between this
and a type of academic snobbery which allows universities to rest on their laurels.