A NEW national strategy for higher education is set to be announced shortly by Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe.
The Minister said the new plan will provide "clear strategic guidelines for the development of the higher education sector".
The new strategy comes as the Government prepares to invest some €13 billion in higher education over the lifetime of the National Development Plan 2007-13.
Later this week, it will launch the latest phase of the Programme for Research in Third-Level Institutions, which will deliver an unprecedented investment of more than €400 million.
But university presidents and other key figures have complained that the sector lacks a clear strategic direction.
Earlier this year, UCD president Dr Hugh Brady and TCD provost Dr John Hegarty joined forces to highlight the "major funding deficit" facing Irish universities by comparison with international competitors.
In an article in The Irish Times, they said the reality on the university campus in Ireland is increasingly at odds with Government rhetoric which envisages "world-class" institutions driving a new "knowledge society".
Mr O'Keeffe made his commitment to the new strategy in his foreword to the Higher Education Authority's (HEA) own strategy document, published yesterday.
The HEA, the body charged with advising Government on higher education policy, says the need for an overall national strategy was one of the key messages to emerge from its consultations with colleges.
The HEA report says there is a widely held view that a national strategy, bringing together all of the strands from relevant policy documents into a single strategy for higher education, is required.
In recent years, various objectives have been set for the higher education sector by a series of reports including the 2004 OECD review, the National Skills Strategy and the Enterprise Strategy Group. But until now there has been no effort made to frame one coherent national policy.
Michael Kelly, the HEA chairman, said such a strategy would provide clarity to higher education institutions as to the overall framework within which they operate. Writing in the HEA review, he said "the sector that we see today is very different from the sector that existed just a decade ago. In planning for the future, it will be particularly necessary for all stakeholders, including Government, agencies and institutions, to work within a commonly-understood framework."
University presidents hope the new strategy will help resolve the gap between the high ambitions set for the sector by Government and the reality of a day-to-day funding crisis.
A majority of the seven universities in the State now operate with a substantial budget deficit, totalling more than €25 million this year.
In their strategy document, the HEA says the system needs to expand over the next decade so that almost 75 per cent of all school leavers go on to third level.
The HEA wants to meet a target that 72 per cent of 17- to 19-year-olds will be in our higher education institutions by 2020. More than 55 per cent of that age group are currently in higher education. Achieving such a goal would put Ireland at the front rank of OECD countries in terms of participation rates. To demonstrate accountability in the sector, the HEA will this year publish the first of what will become annual reports on the accountability of the sector.