“Irish universities and academic staff have consistently delivered above-average outcomes for students, despite diminishing resources. Mr Hennessy now wishes to fix what isn’t broken by imposing new and potentially damaging HR changes on top of ongoing staffing and wage cuts, at a time when ever-more students are enrolling at third-level. He should preferably reacquaint himself with the facts on higher education in Ireland before issuing such cavalier and unhelpful comments in future”, Mr Jennings said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

Up to 4,000 young and gifted Researchers are being placed in constant insecurity and encouraged to think of their jobs as transitory and short-term, with little recognition, poor pay and no thanks or loyalty from their employers, Mr Jennings states.

“The new university policy, which stipulates that all new employment be on a fixed-term or fixed-purpose contract, is a direct challenge to Irish law and to the European Directive and Framework Agreement upon which that law is based.

“It is being introduced by universities, at the behest of the HEA, while these very same institutions call for greater commitment to research, ask our children to pursue careers in this area and issue high-minded but clearly hypocritical pronouncements about the need for a ‘smart economy’”, , Mr Jennings says.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

Recent suggestions regarding the public service being ‘not fit for purpose’ do not apply to the universities and their academic staff; instead, levels of productivity are being increased amid income cuts of up to 25%, Dr Hugh Gibbons, President of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT), states in an address to be delivered to the organisation’s Annual Conference in Dublin today (Saturday, 16 April).

“Over the last two years, university staff numbers have been cut by six percent. This figure does not include staff who retired early under the Incentivised Scheme for Early Retirement (ISER), who cannot be replaced. There is now a drastically reduced number of academic staff in the Universities, most departments are struggling to overcome the reduced level of staff and some departments are near closure.

“While it was traditionally the case that Irish Universities operated at half the cost per student of compared to the UK, over the last two years a combination of public service pay cuts, the pension levy other levies and the recent universal social charge, has resulted in pay cuts in the order of 25%.

“In addition, due to the ban on promotions, many international academics who came to Ireland have begun returning to their home country, depleting resources still further.

“These staffing and wage cuts are occurring at a time when ever-more students are enrolling at third-level. Yet the efficiency and quality of the Irish Higher Education sector is acknowledged by the EU in a recent ECOFIN report, which states that, considering their size, Finland, Ireland and Sweden are the countries with more universities pointed out by peers as being excellent”, Dr Gibbons said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

Commenting on a report in The Irish Times on 4 March last, IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, said there is no evidence whatever to support suggestions that the Department of Education has ‘lost patience’ with the Federation. “Rather, it has been IFUT that has expressed unease at the ’slow bicycle race’ nature of the process and it would appear that other vested interests have adopted an approach of ‘getting their retaliation in first’. In addition, IFUT wishes to clarify that it has not expressed criticism of NUIG proposals, as suggested in the article”, Mike Jennings said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

The Higher Education system is like a first-class, high-performing car that is running out of petrol and requires an immediate injection of funding and resources, IFUT said today in a message to all political parties and candidates in the General Election.

IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, said that staff numbers in Higher Education are down well over 1,000 in two years while student numbers have increased by at least 10,000. In addition, state funding of the sector is down by 14.8% in the past two years alone: only Latvia has a worse record.

IFUT is not aligned to any political party but is urging its members to highlight the needs of the education system and to counteract misrepresentations of the people who work hard in the sector.

“IFUT will be pressing strongly for a commitment to adequate funding and facilities for Higher Education in the interests of our society and economy in any new Programme for Government following the General Election,” Mike Jennings said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

IFUT is also very pleased to see throughout the Report repeated acknowledgements of the current quality and high international reputation of Irish higher education. According to IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, “the statement in the Report that Irish higher education enjoys first place internationally for graduate employability and is placed second of 28 countries surveyed for graduate quality is particularly noteworthy”.

The Report says quite starkly that “the current system is delivering above-average outcomes at below-average funding levels”. The Report’s commitment to Quality Assurance is also welcome.

However, despite these welcome statements and the inclusion of a number of very welcome recommendations, IFUT’s overall assessment of the Report is that it is disappointing, often confused and, in general, a missed opportunity. The Report lacks a sense of authority and credibility. It often reads like a document compiled by people who do not understand the Irish higher education system and how it works.

The Report is uninspiring. It singularly lacks any specific indicators of how any of its recommendations might be implemented against the opposition of vested interests. With a change of government in prospect, it seems that Colin Hunt and his team may well have created one of our all-time most expensive dust accumulators.

The IFUT Media Release is available in full here.

The cases shown in the story, of a small number of very highly paid staff, confirm issues raised by IFUT in 2008: that there were undisclosed pay arrangements for small numbers of senior personnel in the universities. At the time, IFUT condemned the decision by the HEA not to disclose the details of exceptionally high salaries paid to certain senior personnel in six of the seven universities under its remit, a situation exposed by IFUT only through Freedom of Information legislation. IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings said: “Looking at the list at the top 100 earners, one cannot help but be struck by the almost total absence of frontline educators. The list is almost exclusively made up of administrators, bureaucrats and managers.

“Imagine the frustration that will be felt by Assistant Lecturers (starting salary €33 623) or College Lecturers (€48 306) at the allegation that they are ‘high flyers’.

“Such staff have already taken earnings cuts of approximately 20% while the numbers of students they teach has reached the highest levels in Irish history: up 15% in the past two years alone.

“Clearly, anyone who aspires to be rich should not be looking for a job in education”, Mike Jennings said.

The IFUT Press Release is available here.

A letter written to the newspaper by the General Secretary in response to the article was published two days later. The General Secretary’s letter is available on The Irish Times Website. A PDF version is also available here.

Recent data show that the numbers of mature and international students, as well as the traditional school leaver enrolment numbers, are on the increase, while staffing levels, funding and resources are continually being pruned, IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, said.

“This situation threatens the ability of our education system to respond effectively to students’ teaching needs. The Government is jeopardising the very system that produced the graduates that helped Ireland emerge from the last recession of the 1980s. It is an approach that threatens, not just third-level education, but the ability of our economy to recover and prosper in the future,” said Mr Jennings.

The IFUT Press Release is available here.

“I note that in a panic reaction to the prospect of more cuts, some university sources are allegedly considering redundancies for academic staff”, said Mike Jennings, General Secretary of IFUT.

“I wish to state categorically that under no circumstances will IFUT agree to any compulsory job losses in the university sector”, said Mr Jennings.

“At a time of unprecendented demand for higher education and at a time when we have record numbers of students in our universities, it beggars belief that the Department of Education could even be considering more cuts.”

IFUT has called on the Minister for Education, Ms Mary Coughlan TD, to issue an immediate statement denying these reports.

The IFUT Press Release is available here.

In the ballot, 67.68% of the membership voted ‘No’, while 32.32% voted in favour.

IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, said the vote “reflects the strong determination of our members not to have their job contracts put forward for binding arbitration.

“IFUT will be casting its vote against the proposals at the Public Service Committee of ICTU and will be seeking to ensure that the status quo remains in place. We are determined not to have the Croke Park proposals imposed on our members by a majority of other unions”.

The IFUT Press Release is available here.