Lower earners funding college education

TAX PAID by less well-off parents is subsidising university education for the better off, UCD president Hugh Brady has said.

Speaking at the MacGill Summer School yesterday, Dr Brady also said Irish universities, up until this year, had increased student numbers and maintained quality by reducing costs.

“In UCD’s case for example, we have reduced our total staff head count by almost 8 per cent and in 2009/10 alone removed about €27 million from our cost base in addition to State-imposed salary cuts,” Dr Brady said.

“Further cuts of this scale are simply not possible without seriously eroding the quality of our education programmes, reducing our attractiveness to fee-paying international students and diminishing research productivity and innovation.

“In short, if we cut more, we will add higher education to banking and fiscal rectitude as an area where our international reputation will be diminished.”

He said universities were prohibited from charging Irish students, “who can well afford to pay”. “As an example, I am a father of three teenagers for whom I can afford to pay €6,000 each to a private secondary school. When they enter UCD [or another Irish university] in four years’ time, they will have to pay a modest student services charge and will probably ask me to buy a car with the balance! Meanwhile, the tax paid by less well-off parents will continue to subsidise university education for the better off, including my children.

“Universities generate significant fee income from postgraduate and international students. However, State-imposed restrictions on staff recruitment and remuneration limit our ability to expand this activity.”

He said UCD generates €80 million in non-exchequer fee income.

“The wider Irish economy benefits by a similar amount from rent income and other day-to-day spending. To grow this activity, we need to be able to employ more academic and support staff and to incentivise staff to take on leadership roles. We are currently constrained significantly by the State from doing both. This is completely counterproductive,” Dr Brady added.

Tánaiste and Minister for Education Mary Coughlan, also speaking at MacGill, announced new measures to assist teachers’ transition from training and qualification to teaching. She said effective arrangements for the induction and probation of newly qualified teachers could contribute to the quality of the profession.

“Induction support for teachers at primary level is limited and has not involved the principal and the teaching profession sufficiently.

“With some small number of exceptions, induction support at post-primary level is virtually non-existent. Our probationary process for teachers is also well below the optimum.” She said the system was “making a very limited contribution to teacher quality and reform is required”.

Chief executive of Bord na Mona, Gabriel D’Arcy told the summer school that Ireland needed an overarching vision and political and social consensus. “Sustainability is the key business and social megatrend that is going to shape our society and that of the globe for the next 50 years. It’s not alone about how we manage a profit by our company, a profit by our country, it’s how we manage our interaction with the planet, with our own employees, our citizens and with our population – with all stakeholders.

“When I talk about sustainability I am not just talking about energy. I am talking about pervading all walks of life, private and public sector,” Mr D’Arcy said.