Third-level reform could pay dividends

Economics:  'However one looks at it, a key element to sustaining our economic success is third-level education."

Economics:  'However one looks at it, a key element to sustaining our economic success is third-level education."

This quote, from Peter Sutherland, is an appeal for more resources to be devoted to third-level education in the Republic. Peter Sutherland has served as attorney general, EU commissioner and head of the World Trade Organisation, and now runs a little number called British Petroleum plc. When such a person speaks, it's worth listening.

And it's a good time to talk about education. Approximately 50,000 students got their Leaving Certificate results on Wednesday. Many of them will pass through our third-level education system and enter the jobs market.

For many older life-long learners, the system is also vital as an instrument of career change. The people who stake their futures on that system have a right to be treated as its customers. And because the jobs world they are entering is increasingly subject to change, that system should be flexible and responsive.

READ MORE

But to some in academia, the words "customer" and "change" are vulgar. The present system dictates such attitudes. Take academic recruitment, for example. Those who have devoted the prime of their lives to obtaining PhDs and publishing research - however obscure - are favoured over those with practical work experience - however relevant. This system creates a bias against the world of work that the student will enter.

Of course the best lecturers - many of them from top American schools - possess academic excellence and relevant work experience. Unfortunately salary structures in Irish universities can hinder their recruitment. But if we want Irish universities to climb world rankings, then we will have to get over our preoccupation with egalitarianism and accept the idea of excellent salaries for excellent staff. For many, that is a step too far. And although excellence is often under- rewarded in universities, rules of tenure can turn a blind eye to underperformance.

Another issue is third-level fees. Their abolition in the mid-1990s did not fundamentally benefit the less well-off any more than the preceding system of means-tested local authority payments. But let's be honest here. The rainbow coalition that abolished them did so to shore up its vote among the floating middle-class, which previously had to pay fees. In policy terms the move was questionable. A report to the Minister for Education two years ago found that children from lower socio-economic groups remain under-represented in our universities. Incidentally it was also a failure politically. Middle-class voters privately thanked the coalition for its largesse, before voting in droves for a FF/PD coalition promising lower taxes. With friends like that . . .

But I digress. The issue of equity in access to third-level education is a serious one. Addressing the real issue properly - the prohibitive living costs of education faced by the less well-off - might create the political conditions in which fees could be reintroduced, but with local authority grants that could target the less well-off. Students would then have to rationalise their choice, both to themselves and to those who help to meet the cost - taxpayers and parents. This - coupled with proper career guidance - would help avoid bad choices that waste years of students' lives and millions of euro of taxpayers' money.

And a sensible choice does not always mean going to university. We retain in the Republic strong traces of the old British snobbery against vocations and "trades", long after the British have sensibly dropped it. Some university graduates still complain that some without such elegant decoration dared to do better financially than themselves on the back of the Celtic Tiger (this was a theme in some of the demands for increasing public sector pay during the benchmarking exercise).

But as far as pay is concerned, we should accept that a university education is only as good as the job to which it is relevant. This is not to commit the sin of knowing the price of everything and value of nothing. There is a profound value in education that goes beyond job relevance. But this social gain should not automatically be augmented by a material one if no job relevance exists: someone who studies plumbing and becomes a good plumber deserves a better remuneration than a law student who becomes a frustrated employee in a job unrelated to law. Know thyself, as Marcus Aurelius once said. That should be the motto of our third-level education system.

And there is another aspect of third-level education where some hard-nosed pragmatism is called for. In the seventh and eighth centuries, Europe called us teachers of the world and sent young nobles to our halls of learning. In a globalised world many would like to avail once again of that service. Should we insult these guests of the nation by refusing them visas for the full duration of whatever course they wish to undertake?

Reforming third-level education is a case of putting horse and cart in the right order. First reform. Then resources. We must equalise the status of vocational and technical education with that of universities. In the latter, academic excellence must continue to be honoured. But incentive structures need reforming so that equal recognition is also given to lecturers with good communication skills and applied work experience. Salary structures must cease to begrudge international excellence if it can help to put us on the international education map. Underperformance in academia must also be fairly defined and confronted.

It is at this point - and only at this point - that the allocation of extra resources to third-level education will pay off. The first funding challenge is to identify and rectify the resource issues that hinder the less well-off from entering third-level education. The second is to invest strategically in educational establishments, but only where a potential for excellence has been proven by real reform. Some people won't agree with the above but, hey, there are slow learners out there.