2005 Press Releases
Summer Conferrings at University College Cork (UCC), 16 June
Over 400 students graduated today (16 June 2005) at UCC's 2005 Summer
Conferrings. Among those who graduated from the Faculty of Medicine
& Health were 186 BSc in Nursing and over 150 in medicine and
dentistry while 35 received Doctorates in Medicine, Science, Arts,
Engineering, Commerce and Food Science & Technology.
Thirty-four students graduated from the Faculty of Commerce with a
Master's in Business Administration (MBA).
The Conferring addresses were delivered by Sister Dr Kathleen
O'Sullivan, the Order of Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa and
Mr Michael Kelly, Chairman, Higher Education Authority (HEA) (see
below).
Text of Conferring Address by Mr Michael Kelly, Chairman, Higher Education Authority
I was honoured at being asked to speak at this graduation today and am
very happy to do so. I realise that it is a very big day for all
of you who are graduating. Your sense of positive achievement and
celebration is shared by your families and friends and by the academic
community here in UCC. Whatever your chosen field, and whether at
primary, masters or doctorate levels, today marks a major milestone in
each of your lives and one which I hope will conjure up many happy
memories for you in future years.
The awards that you are to receive are not only a testimony to your
academic excellence. They are also the key to opening exciting
and challenging opportunities. The knowledge and skills that you
have acquired will equip you to find rewarding and fulfilling careers
but they also enable you to serve our community, the world at large and
its citizenry in areas of crucial importance.
Nearly 50,000 students will graduate this year with a third level
qualification from undergraduate to postgraduate levels. Barely
40 years ago the figure would have been in the region of 5,000.
That is a phenomenal transformation - a change that has taken place in
the lifetimes of a sizeable number present here today.
It underlines in a very clear and tangible way the impact higher
education is having on our society. While there are still
sections of the population that are under-represented in our third
level system and the HEA is tackling these issues through its National
Office for Equity - higher education graduates are making their
presence felt at a scale never before experienced in the history of
this country.
Education and research are at the heart of our response as a society to
the challenges of life in the 21st Century. In graduating today,
each of you is being judged as having reached a particular standard of
knowledge, skill, competence and scholarship. That brings with it
a certain status and also some responsibilities.
Knowledge, and more particularly the ability to use and expand it, is
now seen as the key resource which can generate greatest advantage to a
community in terms of its economic, social and cultural
development. We, like other OECD countries are experiencing a
shift in our expectations from higher education. It has long been
recognised that the individual student or graduate is enriched by the
experience, through the acquisition of new knowledge, development of
new skills and competences, personal development and growth and
ultimately, the enhancement of individual life chances.
But today we increasingly recognise that the positive effects of higher
education extend far beyond these individual benefits. We now
look to higher education as an essential contributor to national
well-being and progress. That impact is created through the role
played by higher education:
- in promoting social inclusion and responsible citizenship, particularly by widening participation and through opportunities for life-long learning
- in enhancing skill levels in the population to meet the needs of a modern society; and
- in promoting economic, social and cultural development at both national and regional levels.
Much has been written about the need for Ireland to evolve from an economy based primarily on inward investment and imported know-how to one which is based on indigenous research and the capacity for innovation. Very often, the image presented of the knowledge society is one which is concerned predominantly with the physical sciences and particularly the fields of science, engineering and technology.
While these are certainly of huge importance, it is clear that we cannot confine our ambitions just to these areas. The quest for continuous improvement in standards of service, in cost efficiency, in managing risk and generally advancing the way we do things, imposes an on-going requirement for new thinking in all walks of life.
I have long been of the view that each of us can be an innovator. Whatever role we take on in life, we each have the capacity to think about how things are done, with a view to improving them. Viewed in this light, innovation is as much about attitude and mind-set as it is about technical knowledge in any situation. If there is one thought I would like to leave with you today, it is that you too can play a part in Ireland's evolution to the innovative society. Between all of us in this room, consider the combined impact we could have if each of us made a commitment to display our unique innovative capacity to change for the better just one aspect of how we currently do things!
As we seek to benchmark our performance nationally with the best performers internationally, this drive for continuous improvement becomes more critical. From my previous background in health services I had come to realise the value of generating and exploiting new knowledge about better ways of providing services. However, from my very short time in higher education - admittedly on a very steep learning curve - I have come to appreciate much more acutely the critical inter-dependence between research and learning and between learning and improved standards of delivery. Where there is mutual support between the clinical or business environment, the teaching environment and the research environment, it seems to me that we create the conditions under which the upward spiral towards excellence can realise its potential.
Without implying any disrespect to those of you being conferred with an MBA or doctorate, I do take particular pleasure in being present today to witness the graduation of the 2005 B.Sc. in Nursing group. Before a sudden career change earlier this year, in my past life in the health system one of the areas I had responsibility for was human resource policy in the health services. One of the projects I took on some years back was the movement of nursing and midwifery from the former apprenticeship model to a university based education. At the time - the early 1990s - this required a huge push from the profession, the then nursing schools and indeed the higher education system to simply make it happen. We owe a great deal to the early pioneers and advocates who through a combination of inspiration and perspiration developed the initial momentum on this important development.
It is hugely satisfying to see the enormous progress that has been made since, both in education and training and in professional development more generally. This has had significant influence on the perception of Nursing and Midwifery as a very worthwhile career option and in helping to ensure that practitioners are enabled to contribute to their full potential in the health system.
More recent thinking on health care delivery puts a strong emphasis on team working, organised in a co-ordinated way around the needs of individual patients or clients. As you know, team-working isn't just about the occasional incidence of friendly co-operation. It involves an awareness of ones own abilities and limitations as well as the contribution that other members of a team can make. Whether in sport, or management or health care, it involves giving as well as receiving. It requires good leadership to be successful and above all a shared sense of mission and a collaborative mind-set. The team approach - in primary care, in the acute setting, in mental health or in services for people with a disability - is now at the centre of modern health care.
Through the establishment of the Brookfield Health Science Complex, UCC has established a very strong foundation on which to base the preparation of tomorrow's health professionals. The combination of Nursing and Midwifery, Medicine and the School of Therapies in a combined complex is a very positive advance. Too often in the past individual nurses and midwives, therapists or doctors were faced with the challenge of adjusting to team working in mid-career. It makes much more sense now to view this inter-disciplinary approach as the preferred way of working and to prepare people for professional life with this assumption as an integral part of their education and training from the start. On a recent visit to UCC I had the opportunity to take a quick look at this new complex and I was hugely impressed by what I saw. The combination of these state of the art facilities and the commitment to the highest professional standards which is evident here in UCC will have lasting impact on the quality of Irish health care for many years to come.
The greatest resource this country has at its disposal are its people. In this regard, the students that follow their studies in our many third level institutions are our richest resource. The substantial investment both public and private that has been made over the recent past has blossomed. But further support is now required. We have moved to a new platform of capability. If we don't avail of this opportunity we well be doing future generations a disservice.
In concluding, I want to congratulate each of you being conferred today on a job well done. I hope that each of you will experience the various personal benefits that flow from educational achievement. As you face into the next stage of your work or academic career you will do so with new confidence based on what you have learnt during your time here in UCC. I am sure you will also join with me in extending thanks and appreciation to the teaching staff for all of their assistance and support to you. I hope that you will enjoy the day and wish you the very best of luck with the next stage of your career.
087MMcS
« Back to 2005 Press Releases