The restructuring process in our universities has undermined academic standards and damaged collegiality, writes Seán Barrett

Introduction:

This essay examines the economics of Irish university restructuring and finds serious deficiencies. Since restructuring was financed in 2005 by university borrowings and internal university transfers it has not been subject to public expenditure appraisal.

No cost-benefit analysis of restructuring has been conducted. The benefit sought is an improved research performance in international league tables.

The starting point for the current bout of "reform" in our universities was the 2005 Book of Estimates, which provided for a 6.3 per cent increase in public expenditure on the sector. This was condemned by university presidents who had sought a €30 million restructuring fund in order to address the problems of Irish universities as interpreted by their heads.

The Irish University Association (IUA), the group which now represents the seven university heads, claimed the sector had been starved of funds. In fact current spending on higher education has risen at an annual rate of 15 per cent since 1997 - compared with an inflation rate of only 3.5 per cent.

So is this a contrived "crisis" in Irish universities?

In contrast to the IUA claims of the "already mediocre international standing" of Irish universities, there is the evidence that Irish university qualifications are recognised internationally both for further study and entry to employment. Extern examiners and students from abroad report favourably on overall standards, the quality of lectures in Irish universities and on the interaction between students and lecturers.

The interface between education and the labour market was more efficient in Ireland between the late 1980s and 2004 than in any other OECD country. Unemployment fell from 17 per cent in 1986 to 4 per cent in 2005 and there was a doubling of the numbers at work.

The OECD (2004) noted "the enormous strides Ireland has made over the last 15 years in raising its tertiary education age participation level without any evidence of lack of quality." The dean of research at TCD reported that "Trinity is now in the top 1 per cent of world institutions in terms of citations" in eight subject areas, within weeks of the IUA claims of mediocrity .

So why did university heads talk up a crisis? Was it done to maximise Government subsidies to the sector in the wake of the abolition of undergraduate university fees?

Or was this a strategy by the university heads in order to increase their power within the universities by abolishing academic departments and faculties?

The main features of the restructuring include:

(a) Downgrading arts, business economics and social studies in favour of science and research.

This process will lead to reduced standards of students at entry; average entry points will decline from 424 to 321, a fall of 24 per cent based on the most recent figures. There will also be increased costs per student.

And is the science problem overstated? The Government publication, Building Ireland's Knowledge Economy (July 2004) stated "the Irish education system is producing more science and engineering graduates than most other countries". In the class of graduates in 2000 the report found that 35 per cent of Irish graduates were in science and engineering compared with an EU average of 26 per cent.

(b) The abolition of departments with fewer than 50 academic staff and the combining of disparate departments with less than 50 academic staff in schools of at least 50 academic staff.

No evidence of these economies of scale was provided. No analysis was made of unit costs in small, medium and large departments such as computer science. Imperfect measures of staff input were used.

(c) The abolition of groups of departments known as faculties.

Faculties had a proven track record of running courses and examinations leading to the award of qualifications. Departments and faculties are the units of the university to which students relate, but little consideration was given to students in the restructuring proposals.

(d) The downgrading of undergraduate lecturing.

The emphasis by advocates of restructuring was on research and postgraduates. This has been a trend in Irish universities for some time. The shedding of undergraduate lecturing duties has become a sign of prestige for aspiring college officers. . . By contrast senior academic staff avoiding lecturing to undergraduates is not a feature of prestigious universities in the United States and Britain and was not a feature of Irish universities in the past.

Academic staff were recruited as lecturers. The public interest aspect of this downgrading of undergraduate lecturing must be seriously questioned, however.

(e) The replacement of elected academic officers by managerial staff.

The growth of managerial posts is a feature of restructuring. Elected deans and heads of departments will be replaced by this appointed managerial class and extra administrative and pay costs will be required.

The more sinister side of managerialism has been its totalitarian aspect, which strikes at the essence of a university community in which ideas are discussed in a democratic participatory context. The last thing academics need is to be "managed".

A further consequence of the rise of managerialism in Irish universities is lack of accountability.

(f) The allocation of fixed shares of university budgets to research and restructuring.

Ireland's national research funding lacks cost-benefit analysis and measures of output. These defects should not be extended by applying that system also to the allocation of university funds.

R&D funding should not be an end in itself but one of a range of economic development policies with which it should compete for resources.

Conclusion:

This essay supports the decision in the 2005 Budget not to allocate to the heads of Irish universities the €30 million requested for restructuring. The request showed elements of both rent-seeking and power-play in internal university governance. Information on either the benefits or costs of restructuring was minimal.

Costs per student will rise, in particular, managerial and administration costs. Academic standards will fall because of the shift away from arts and social science which have higher entry standards than science, engineering and computer science. The earnings of graduates will fall.

The decision by university heads to proceed with restructuring financed by borrowing or running down reserves, when public funding was refused. . . means that Irish universities are storing up problems for the future.

The OECD cautioned that its report "does not represent a case for the introduction of crude managerialism or the elimination of collegiality", but both these high prices are being paid.

Seán D Barrett is an economics lecturer at Trinity College Dublin.

The above is an edited version of an article which first appeared in Administration, the quarterly journal of the Institute of Public Administration (IPA)