Universities Bill contains the seeds of controversy

BECAUSE it was published in July, the Universities Bill has only recently started to evoke comment, but it would be unwise for the Government to infer from the silence of the recent holiday period that the Bill will be uncontroversial.

It should, nevertheless, be said at the outset that this proposed legislation does a number of useful things - that had been requested by the National University of Ireland, including the devolution of important functions from the NUI Senate to its constituent colleges, each of which will now become a university in its own right. Moreover, the recognised college of Maynooth, which for many years past has been a highly successful university institution, will, become one of these universities within the NUI system.

These new universities will remain within an NUI federal structure. Matriculation requirements will continue to be determined by the National University, which will also be responsible for reviewing the content and teaching of courses and for appointing and determining the functions of external examiners. The degrees and other qualifications awarded by the constituent universities will be degrees and qualifications of the NUI.

Such discussion as has hitherto taken place about the Bill seems to have centred largely on the composition of future Governing Authorities. Unlike the other universities, Dublin University - more familiarly known as TCD - has hitherto had no outside representatives on its board, and has been reticent about, accepting minority non academic representation. This has clearly had a major effect on the shape of this, Bill - but, notably, only so far as Dublin University, and to a lesser extent, Maynooth, are concerned.

In part - but only in part - this derives from the different historical circumstances in which our seven universities came into existence. Two of them - Dublin University and Maynooth - were religious foundations; the remainder were founded by the State, before or after independence. The former currently have no outside representation on their governing bodies; the NUI colleges, founded between 1845 and 1908, have some; and Limerick and Dublin City, established by the State, have governing bodies with a membership appointed by the State.

The composition of the Governing Authorities proposed in this Bill reflects these historical differences.

But while, rightly, the Minister for Education has not attempted to achieve uniformity in the composition of these Governing Authorities, her proposals, even having regard to this historical background, are markedly biased against the secular founded universities.

For while the legislation has been subtly drafted in such a way as to appear at first sight to be even handed, the reality is that, so far as academic representation on Governing Authorities is concerned, its provisions are discriminatory, as between the universities, to a degree that seems to me to go well beyond anything justified by their different.

Thus, the Bill provides that Dublin University may, if it wishes, have a Governing Authority with an academic majority of over two thirds comprising as many as 15 academics, together with as few as four others from within the university and three outsiders. Maynooth may have a Governing Authority of which half the members may be academic. But, in the others, academic representation is restrained by discriminatory provisions that ensure a minimum non academic majority of between 56 per cent and 61 per cent. (These calculations are based on the assumption that one of the two senior administrators to be appointed to the new Governing Authorities will be the university's academic registrar.)

For the two newer universities these proposals are, of course, a great improvement on the present arrangements, under which all the members of their Governing Bodies are at present nominated by the Minister for Education. But, in the cases of the Governing Authorities of UCD, UCC and UCG, academic representation is to be reduced from its current level of half or more to - at most - between one third and two fifths.

How has this remarkably skewed result, as between two universities with past denominational origins Dublin University/Maynooth - and the non denominational remainder, been achieved?

First of all, and perhaps most strikingly, it is proposed to keep academic numbers down by making unlawful the appointment of staff, members through four of the possible routes to Governing Authority membership.

Moreover, if a university now chooses to maintain election by graduates to its Governing Authority, a staff member could in future - be elected by this route only if that authority formally decided to waive; this restriction. Hitherto, many of those freely elected by graduates to NUI college governing bodies have been staff members.

Not only are these provisions openly discriminatory the decision to include them was not disclosed in the Minister's position paper, published last November, upon which the debate in Seanad Eireann a month later was based, and no explanation has so far been offered for this unheralded discrimination against academic representation on Governing Authorities.

In relation to graduate representation, it may be noted that this position paper merely stated that: "All universities would be given an option to appoint graduates to their governing bodies".

No indication was given of any intention to preclude graduates from electing fellow graduates who are staff members as they have done in the past, to the point, indeed, that often a clear majority of their choices have been staff members unless, of course, future Governing Authorities with built in non academic majorities specifically authorise a procedure that would have the effect of strengthening the academic minorities on these authorities.

A second discriminatory provision as between Dublin University and Maynooth, on the one hand, and the five other universities, on the other, is an ingenious, but perverse, linking of the scale of Government and interest group on Governing Authorities. It might have been logically have provided that, in universities with a larger number of Government nominees representing the outside world, other outside representation would be reduced. Instead, the Bill proposes the exact opposite universities with one Government representative need to have those with three Government nominees must have three from interest groups; and UCD, Limerick and DCU, with four Government representatives, must also have four from interest groups. Not surprisingly, no explanation or justification has been offered for this extraordinary provision.

The third highly discriminatory provision as between Dublin University and UCD, UCC and UCC is Section 14.5 of the Bill. This provides that Dublin University shall supplement its professorial and junior staff representation by the election of up to six Fellows to its Governing Authority - while the very same section requires UCD, UCC and UCG instead to increase their outside representation through the addition of a minimum of between 2 and 4 local authority members.

Fourthly, the reduction from three to one of the number of appointments to NUI University Governing Authorities by the NUI Senate has an additional discriminatory effect, as it further reduces the possibilities of academic representation on the Governing Authorities of these universities - and only on them.

THE rationale of this whole set of complex and cumulatively discriminatory provisions, which operate to the disadvantage of the existing NUI colleges, is, to say the least, obscure, and will no doubt be challenged when the Bill is debated in the Oireachtas.

Given that in Seanad Eireann the Government is dependent for a majority on the goodwill of university Senators, the Minister might be well advised, as a minimum, to announce in advance of the debate in that House the withdrawal of these discriminatory provisions.

To my mind a further highly disturbing aspect of the Bill, this time affecting TCD just as much as the other universities, is the inclusion in it of a series of provisions which between them propose to give the Higher Education Authority virtually complete domination over every aspect of the universities, at the expense of the autonomy that has always been a crucial element of their role in Irish society. These extraordinary provisions will be outlined in a second article.