Earlier this week at a town hall meeting held by College, Registrar Neville Cox suggested that the provisions of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) Bill 2022, which specifies two student representatives on the governing authority of every higher education institution, represent an increase in student representation for most other higher education institutions in Ireland.
This was in response to concerns raised by students that student representation on Trinity’s Board is set to be halved from four to two.
In fact, no higher education institution in Ireland currently has less than two student representatives on its governing body (excluding SETU which has not yet fully established its governing authority).
In eight out of 13 of these institutions, student representation is more than two, meaning that the HEA Bill 2022 will decrease student representation in over 60% of higher education institutions
Trinity, University College Dublin, and Maynooth University each have four student representatives on their governing authority. Five institutions have three student members, these being NUI Galway, Technological University Dublin, University College Cork, University of Limerick and Munster Technological University. Of the other five higher education institutions in Ireland, four each have two student members of their governing body, including Dundalk IT and IADT, while the newly established South East Technological University has not yet formed it’s board.
The governing authority, or the Board in Trinity, is the body which oversees the governance and running of a higher education institution.
