Quality Review for LYIT Completed

Quality Review for LYIT Completed

News, Student News, Staff News / Wednesday 5 December 2018

LYIT commended for strong links with industry and employers

Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LYIT) has successfully completed a quality review conducted by Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI), the state agency responsible for the external quality assurance of further and higher education and training in Ireland.
 
Every 7 years QQI carries out an external review of higher education institutions to check on the maintenance and improvement of quality.  The review explores how the institution has improved its teaching, learning and research systems, and how well institutions have aligned with their own mission, quality indicators and benchmarks.   LYIT was one of the first institutions to undergo the process in the current CINNTE cycle.
 
Panels of national and international education experts conducted a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of the quality assurance procedures of LYIT, delivering commendations on examples of good practice which were seen to deliver impact for students and staff, and making recommendations on areas for improvement in the coming years.
 
LYIT was commended on its:

  • Success in growing student numbers, programmes and resulting income streams
  • Introduction of a Head of Research and Innovation, and a Research Office
  • Strong links with industry and employers and their enhancement of their student experience
  • Support of access, transfer and progression of students
  • Development of collaborations and partnerships.

Padraig Walsh, CEO of QQI, remarked, “The QQI CINNTE reviews are a rigorous evaluation which give third-level students at Irish institutions confidence in the quality of the education they are receiving.  We are delighted that LYIT has shown evidence of significant impact on students, research and its regions.  LYIT’s engagement with this process and its commitment to improvements will set an agenda to deliver positive outcomes for its wide and varied communities”.
 
Paul Hannigan, President of LYIT, welcomed the report and commented “Letterkenny IT was delighted to partake in this Cyclical Review.  This was the culmination of a two-year cycle of School, Central Service and Programmatic Reviews in the Institute and we were very happy with the manner in which the review was conducted and the recommendations and commendations arising from the report.  The QQI Cinnte Institutional Review Report concluded that LYIT ‘has in place, and is implementing, an effective set of quality assurance procedures; has in place, and is implementing, effective procedures in the context of its awarding of qualifications up to and including research degrees at Level 9; has a quality assurance system in place that is leading to quality outcomes and is subject to oversight through its governance system; is actively seeking to improve the quality of the institution and to responsively address any concerns raised by its students; [and] is effectively implementing access, transfer and progression processes’”.

Professor Crichton Lang, Deputy Principal, University of the Highlands and Islands, and Chair of the LYIT Review Team, said, “I was extremely pleased to be asked to chair this review. Over the whole process myself and the rest of the review team were very impressed by the enthusiasm and openness with which all of the Institute’s staff engaged with us, and with the manner in which the Institute embraced the spirit and purpose of this review model. Their commitment to LYIT and to its future success were also clearly evident. I hope that LYIT find the outcomes of the review helpful and constructive as they continue to progress their plans and strategies”.

To read a summary of the report for LYIT, click here.
To read the LYIT report in full, click here.


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