PRESIDENT'S LOG:The ink had barely begun to dry on the revised Programme for Government before confusion crept in, writes FERDINAND VON PRONDZYNSKI

WHAT A week it’s been.

I spent much of it trying to get my head around the fallout from the revised Programme for Government agreed between Fianna Fáil and the Green Party.

That wasn’t an easy task – frankly, it has been totally chaotic. I came to be feel very quickly that the two parties, in reaching their agreement, had no idea what the impact would be on our university sector.

But let me just go back to the revised Programme for Government itself. This is what it said: “Conscious of the economic pressures on parents today, this Government will not proceed with any new scheme of student contribution for third-level education.”

It also said some other stuff on higher education, but those were references to discussions and processes that were already ongoing, so the above quote was the only thing that was new.

I don’t suppose we need to interpret this too much: it means that we won’t have fees or student loans. I guess it also means there won’t be a graduate tax, although I suppose if you were being pedantic you could argue that this wouldn’t be a “student contribution”.

But as soon as the ink was dry on the agreement and the Greens had congratulated themselves and endorsed it at the RDS, confusion began to creep in. Actually, it didn’t creep in – it came in like a tsunami.

First, Green Party leader and Minister for the Environment John Gormley got to interpret it all on RTÉ's This Week.

In the course of his interview, one thing became clear very quickly: nobody had given any thought – and I mean any thought at all – to what this decision would mean for the higher education sector. The focus had solely been on protecting voters from any new financial burden.

Although the Minister described his party as the “party of education”, all questions put to him about how the sector would deal with this development elicited only very vague responses. And then he suggested something really, really curious: that universities might deal with the financial fallout by increasing the registration charge (currently at €1,500 per student per year).

In fairness to him, Mr Gormley expressed the hope that they wouldn’t do that, but when pressed on this he also seemed to imply that he felt they might, and that it was a matter for them.

The next morning I was interviewed on all this on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, and this was followed later in the programme by an interview with the Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe.

And right away, Mr O’Keeffe made it abundantly clear that he did not like what had been agreed between the coalition parties.

He accepted what had been done, but his own view still was, and would be, that the plans he had been making for student contributions were the correct strategy.

What is more, he said that he was pretty sure that fees or loans would come, sooner or later. And then he, too, stumbled all around the registration charge.

This charge, he reminded us, was intended to cover student services, and if the cost of those services was higher than the income from the current charge, then the universities, in discussion with the Higher Education Authority (HEA), would be able to increase it.

Really? I have to say that nobody has ever taken any interest that I am aware of in the relationship between the charge and the services it is supposed to support. I hasten to add that we set out in detail what these costs are, and at no stage has the charge ever come close to meeting them, but that’s not how the charge is set.

So what does happen? Actually, I haven’t the remotest idea. All I can say is that once a year I get a letter from the HEA telling me what the charge is going to be. And I mean, telling me. I don’t mean asking or consulting me, or seeking information on what our costs are going to be. I mean telling me. But how that figure is arrived at, I have no idea.

Furthermore, on at least one occasion an increase in the charge was immediately clawed back by the government, so that in that instance the increased charge certainly didn’t pay for any student service, it was a contribution to general taxation.

So here we are then – no fees, big time confusion about the registration charge. And we can be absolutely sure that we’ll also have a much smaller grant.

Indeed, there is something else we probably need to factor in: the cost of additional primary teachers. Where is the money going to come from?

I have a horrible, sinking feeling that third level is going to pay the price for this, come the Budget.

And so I have a heartfelt plea. I accept that we have a major crisis in our public finances and that universities cannot expect to be protected from this, any more than anyone else.

But at a time when we should be highlighting the role of our universities in helping to secure new skills and international investment, we are subjecting them to uncertainty and decline.

Maybe this can be corrected in the forthcoming report of the higher education strategic review group.

But I hope this is not just going to tell us that we need to be much more efficient with smaller resources and that we need to be more tightly controlled. I hope someone, right now, is preparing to be bold, imaginative, confident and strategic with our system of higher education.

And my plea to the politicians is: talk to us much more – we have many ideas, and lots to offer.

• Ferdinand von Prondzynski is president of Dublin City University