Higher Education Research Centre header
Higher Education Research Centre

New Book by Prof. Patrick Clancy

Professor Patrick Clancy has published a new book Irish Higher Education: A Comparative Perspective. Jan O’Sullivan, Minister for Education and Skills, was guest of honour at the book launch on May 19th.

Published by the Institute of Public Administration,Irish Higher Education: A Comparative Perspective provides an authoritative account of the Irish education system from a comparative perspective. It reviews the expansion and diversification of the system in the light of global developments, and provides a rigorous comparison of relative participation rates and levels of equity. It examines features of the student experience, the role of the academic profession, the research mission, and the linkages between higher education and the labour market. It reviews the funding crisis brought about by declining exchequer support, explores the changing patterns of governance and the rise of the evaluative state, and reviews critically the current focus on mergers and other forms of consolidation designed to achieve a structural reconfiguration of the system. This policy analysis is informed by an overview of developments in other countries and an assessment of the impact of supra-national agencies such as the OECD and other external ‘experts’ in setting the change agenda.

Patrick Clancy is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and was Dean of the Faculty of Human Sciences at University College Dublin. His research and publications on higher education include four national studies of participation and a large number of journal articles and book chapters. He was a founding member, and subsequently served on the Board of Governors and as Chair, of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers. In 2005 he was selected as a Fulbright New Century Scholar.

Irish Higher Education: A Comparative Perspective is available in paperback at €28.00 in all major bookshops and from the Sales Division of the IPA, Tel: (01) 2403764 and sales@ipa.ie. For review copies contact Mary Tracey, Tel: (01) 2403764, mtracey@ipa.ie.