Sir, - I am Dean of the Business School at the University of Brighton, England. In this role I have had the good fortune to serve as an external examiner for degree-level courses in my own country at the universities of Surrey, Huddersfield, Oxford Brookes, Southampton; in Scotland at Napier, and in Hong Kong at the Polytechnic University.
In the period between 1992 and 1996, I also served as an external examiner at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT). Without a shadow of a doubt, I can confirm that what was taught and examined at DIT was equivalent to the undergraduate courses I have examined elsewhere in the world. Furthermore, I think it important to emphasise the role played by DIT, which is in the provision of vocational and professional courses recognised in most countries as equivalent, while sometimes different, to traditional academic qualifications more often associated with older universities.
I think it would be very disappointing if the enactment of the Universities Bill 1996, which is before the Dail, were not to accord university status to DIT. - Yours, etc.
Dean of Faculty, University of Brighton Business School.