Ruairí Quinn does not want to be remembered as the Minister who brought back college fees – but he may have no option, writes SEÁN FLYNN, Education Editor
OF ALL the issues on his desk, Ruairí Quinn views higher education funding as the most problematic.
That’s not surprising. While the Minister for Education has been lauded for many of his reform initiatives in the past six months, his performance in relation to college funding has been much less sure-footed.
It does not help that the Minister has a troubled history on the issue.
Last March, Quinn opposed the €500 increase in the student contribution charge from €1,500 to €2,000.
In discussions with student leaders during the campaign, he also made a personal commitment to reverse the increase.
Worse, he signed a Union of Students in Ireland pledge ruling out additional student fees.
As a new Minister in May, he was forced into an embarrassing U-turn when he refused to rule out the return of fees and backed the €2,000 student contribution fee, introduced last month.
Those promises no longer stood; he had less room for manoeuvre than envisaged, he said.
Since then, Quinn has left himself open to the charge that he is vacillating on the issue. Over the summer he asked the Higher Education Authority to assess the funding needs of the higher education sector – even though this had already been addressed in the Hunt Report earlier this year.
Quinn has also sent mixed signals on the issues of student loans and fees. Two months ago, he signalled they were off the agenda before hinting that they could, after all, be an option some weeks later.
All of this matters because higher education needs a sustainable funding base if it is to compete internationally, become the engine of economic revival and reverse the slump in world rankings.
With colleges struggling with resources, no one across the university sector is much surprised by the dramatic fall in the rankings of Trinity and UCD. Last month, the Trinity provost, Prof Paddy Prendergast, complained that his college’s budget was only 66 per cent of British counterparts. He also predicted the “inexorable decline” of Ireland’s higher education sector without a funding boost, through the introduction of student tuition fees.
Calls for a proper funding base for Irish higher education are nothing new. In 2004 the key OECD report proposed a “quantum leap” in funding.
This year, the Hunt report backed the return of fees. The existing funding model, it noted, was “unsustainable”, warning that continuing cuts in State support would damage overall standards.
In the past decade, two ministers for education – Noel Dempsey and Batt O’Keeffe – have attempted to grasp the funding nettle; both were forced to climb down.
Quinn now faces a dilemma. Without adequate funding, higher education in Ireland faces decline and stagnation. But the return of fees and/or loans will draw Quinn into a bitter battle with Middle Ireland, students and parents.
Ideally, the Minister would prefer to focus on his reform agenda.
He does not want to be remembered as the Minister who brought back college fees. But the funding crisis will not go away.
Indeed, it may get worse before it gets better; student numbers are projected to surge by 72 per cent over the next 20 years.
The Hunt report said annual funding must increase by €500 million annually – from €1.3 billion to €1.8 billion by 2020. It also said funding should almost double to €2.25 billion a year by 2030.
The questions now are: Where and how will Quinn find the money?