Higher Education and Training Awards Council

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HETAC


Established	1972
Chief Executive	Séamus Puirséil
Location	Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Address	Denzille Lane Dublin 2
Telephone	+353-1 631 4567
Website	http://www.hetac.ie

The Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC) is the legal successor to the National Council for Educational Awards and grants higher education awards in Ireland in the extra-university system; HETAC was created in 2001 under the Qualifications (Education and Training) Act, 1999 (Section 21). HETAC is an institution subject to the policies of the National Qualifications Authority of Ireland and grants qualifications at many Institutes of Technology and other colleges.

The National Council for Educational Awards (NCEA) was founded in 1972, on an ad-hoc basis and granted the first National Certificates that year at five Regional Technical Colleges. Early on it was decided that the NCEA would be the only extra-university conferring institution in the State at higher education rather than having a multitude of competing institutions, with authority to grant awards at all academic levels including degree level. During the 1970s this caused some trouble as Fine Gael-Labour (National Coalition) government attempted to limit the NCEA to subdegree awards only, later Fianna Fáil government of 1977 restored the full powers and placed the NCEA on a statutory footing in 1980 by the National Council for Educational Awards Act, 1979.

1 Awards
2 Providers
- 2.1 Section 24 (1)(a)
- 2.2 Section 24 (1)(b)
3 See also
4 External link

[edit] Awards

HETAC has recently completed the transition from awards derived from the NCEA standards to a new awards system based on the National Framework of Qualifications. A rough correspondence between the awards of the two systems is shown below.

Legacy	Current
Certificate (HETAC)†
National Certificate†	Higher Certificate‡
National Diploma†	Ordinary bachelor's degree‡
Honours bachelor's degree	Honours bachelor's degree
Graduate Diploma (conversion)†	Higher Diploma‡
Graduate Diploma (professional)†	Postgraduate Diploma‡
Master's degree	Master's degree
Doctorate degree	Doctorate degree
† Not granted after June 2006. ‡ Granted from July 2004.

[edit] Providers

The providers of courses which lead to HETAC awards are called "recognised institutions", and they are recognised under the Qualifications (Education & Training) Act, 1999 (Section 24). Some of these institutions may have "delegation of authority" (often referred to as "delegated authority") which allows them to make HETAC awards in their own name, this is currently limited to the Institutes of Technology and is often limited to certain award levels at institutions.