What I cannot understand is that if Irish third level institutes can participate in Erasmus programmes (which, I assume, implies recognition of courses taken elsewhere, including where visiting students attend Irish institutions – all of which have full module approval/accreditation. Or do they? Is Eramus suspect?) , what is holding back the same recognition being given within the Republic?

That would at least, get what Frank proposed, started – as the same procedures can be applied.

In general, no Irish university will accept a course from another Irish university unless it first passes through the full module approval process in the receiving institution. (I suspect the IT sector may be more organised in this respect.)

Even within institutions, many depts will not agree to admit an extra body to a course unless they get a transfer of FTEs (which is not unreasonable or too complicated) but in some cases, cold hard cash from dept budgets has been demanded.

So it really would have to be a top down decision, and would probably require creating a new, virtual, National University to handle the course coding and credit transfers. The best way to start this would be at graduate level, where timetables are less crowded and more flexible than at undergraduate level.

Undoubtedly, a measure of online and blended delivery would help this sharing process.

However, unless government says “Collaborate or be shut down”, institutions will be slow to look at how creative ways to share the pie. But if we do not move on this, smaller HEIs and weak depts in larger institutions will be lost, and we will end up buying in large tracts of our higher education as a package deal from companies like Pearson who are rapidly establishing market position in the US and Latin America.

Looking at the US may be instructive, but so too would looking at other large successful entities with world class standards of excellence. Hence my reference to Germany.
Why not find out how if these things are done in other smaller countries and if so how, eg. Austria, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland?

Let me just say that my experience of policy development in Ireland that good ideas are sometimes taken up, but not implemented in a consistent way. I now suspect that this is because “the new convictions are sufficiently held or rationally understood”, as David Thornley put it in his 1960s paper “Ireland: the end of an Era?”
If we are going to innovate as you suggest, I still say let us just leave it to all third level institutes to carry out some experiments if the centralising powers-that-be can be persuaded to stay out of it?

Thanks for thoughtful comment. My experience with policy development in Ireland is to start with something small, get it working well, and then extend it. UCD and TCD are only 30 minutes away by bus and less by bike, they already have a collaborative framwork, they both need to compete successfully in a ferociously competitive international world for students, so there is mutual gain. Your idea of creation of in effect a domestic Erasmus scheme is well worth examining – where students would transfer for a semester – but not part of my modest proposal.

Best

Frank

Has this not existed on a national scale in Germany for decades?
If I have understood it correctly, students may opt to attend other universities for a semester or longer. Courses taken are recognised in the institution that finally awards the qualification.
I gather that relatively few students (<25%) taken this course.

So why not extend this idea to all institutes of higer education in the whole country?

Imagine that a UL economics undergrad student wanted to become familiar with forestry by spending a semester in UCD;
or a TCD engineering undergrad student wanted some insight into marine biology by spending a semester in NUIG,
this proposal as set out will not facilitate that.

The key point is that if this possibility is to be implemented, it should be designed – at the outset – for the whole range of thrid level institutions in the country.

Confining it to UCD-TCD risks creating a new basis for "group-think" that has got this country into the state it is now in.