IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, said that the funding cuts are occurring at a time when the number of people seeking to attend Higher Education is the highest in the history of the state and will exacerbate the trend towards forced emigration of a generation of our young people.

“Higher Education must be developed to fulfil its potential as a contributor to our society and economy and not subject to automatic cuts in Budgetary considerations,” Mike Jennings said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings warned that the HEA’s rôle should instead be to seek to expand education access at a time of increasing demand and to assist in plans for economic recovery.

“A less candid man would not have been so open about cutback threats at a time when academics are voting on the “Croke Park Proposals” which, if accepted, would give the Government a blank cheque to impose all of these things without any meaningful regard for the rights of staff. I am sure that all IFUT members will now understand more than ever the necessity to reject the ‘Croke Park Proposals’ ”, said Mr Jennings.

Mr Jennings warned that the HEA’s analysis was “more sensational than thorough”. “How can you possibly say that our education system lacks critical mass at a time when we have historically high numbers of students in the system? How can you possibly argue, just when the points race is beginning to start up again because of the imbalance between student places and demand, that now is the time to start shutting down courses and colleges? It would be much more consistent with the rôle of the HEA were it to lobby hard for more funds for our seriously underfunded higher education system, rather than attacking that system and asking it to shrink itself,” said Mr Jennings.

The IFUT Press Release is available in full here.

“If there are issues in higher education that Minister Coughlan is concerned about and does not understand, she should come to us”, said the General Secretary. “Who is better able to speak knowledgeably about an issue such as Grade Inflation: the people who work in the system, or the CEOs of two multi-national companies?”

Discussing the current national situation, Mike Jennings stressed that no national sense of common purpose exists. He said the economy has been mismanaged into a spectacular collapse and that many of the most objectionable aspects of the ‘transformation agenda’ for higher education will not result in any significant financial savings.

“For those of us who work at the service of the public good there is a constant belittlement of what we are, who we are and what we do. Making do with income cuts of between 17% and 20% is not easy.

“It is not just the loss of income imposed by a discriminating pension levy, by increases in taxes and by reductions in salary. Threats to our employment contracts, asking us to sign up – sight unseen – to a Higher Education Review Body Report which has not yet even been written and attempts to make us spend endless wasted hours counting and accounting for every minute of our days, are not based on the need to spend money more wisely. They are petty, ideological-inspired attacks on the whole fabric of a higher education system which some of our controllers have never understood and never valued.”

The IFUT Press Release is available in full here. The General Secretary’s speech is available in full here.

“In spite of underfunding, the Irish University system is a successful university system. The Heads of the Irish Universities regularly report that the Irish University system is about half the cost per student as an equivalent UK University”, the IFUT President said. Quoting a recent EU Report, he pointed out that Ireland is at the top of the ‘efficiency’ league table and stressed that:

• Irish graduates are the most highly employable in Europe;
• Irish universities have the highest graduation rate in Europe;
• Ireland has the highest percentage of graduates in Europe;
• Universities in Ireland, Finland and Sweden are given the highest ‘excellence’ rating by academics in other EU countries.

“The Universities are being ruined by the Government embargo and moratorium. Posts in Universities remain vacant as the Government refuses to allow their filling; as a result departments are struggling to maintain their courses.”

Hugh Gibbons concluded by stressing the breadth and variety of University research and the narrowness of the Department of Finance interest. “Universities carry out all kinds of research: research that is socially useful, that investigates the fundamental properties of nature, research into mathematics, into our history, languages, culture, education and even economics. The only research the Department of Finance is interested in, is research that would give rise to a commercial return and this mostly relates to Science and Engineering.”

The IFUT Press Release is available in full here. The President’s speech is available in full here.