The recent OECD report on the future of higher education in Ireland served only to reinforce a corporate view of education, prioritising a market-driven approach towards research and teaching within the third-level education system here, a public meeting will hear later today.
According to Education is Not For Sale, a coalition of teachers, parents, university staff, trade unionists, students and others, while the report highlighted the lack of funding for third-level, many of its major recommendations, such as the reintroduction of fees, should be resisted.
This is because they form part of an ongoing "corporate take-over of universities and schools" in Ireland, it believes.
Tonight's meeting in Dublin's Liberty Hall will be addressed by a number of speakers, including the heads of all three teaching unions and Ms Jan O'Sullivan, Labour's spokeswoman on education.
In a formal response to the report, which was undertaken by the Paris-based OECD after a request from the former minister for education, Mr Noel Dempsey, the education coalition says the review promotes an over-emphasis on the role of education in promoting economic development.
"The report's view of research is predominantly taken from the world of business," the coalition continues. The report has a narrow view of the aims of research which it says are "to attract overseas companies" and "sustain and enhance indigenous industry".
It adds: "The authors seem to believe that only investment in research in the physical sciences will contribute to 'enterprise'. . . [but] many important ideas that advance both social and economic progress originate from Arts and Humanities programmes."
The recommendations also start from a selective view of what constitutes research, the coalition says. It also criticises the report's plans for the Institute of Technology sector, which it says has broadened access to education for those traditionally excluded.