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.

Minister Quinn stated, “We have a very talented workforce, but the loss of employment in traditional sectors such as construction, manufacturing and retail has meant that many of these qualified and experienced people are now out of work. At the same time, we know that there are skills shortages in certain areas. By providing focused up-skilling and retraining programmes, such as those offered through Springboard, we can match those vacancies with a newly re-skilled workforce and get people back to work.”

Potential students will apply online though Bluebrick.ie, which is the central clearing system for part time courses. Further information on programmes is also available on Bluebrick.ie.

The HEA Press 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.

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.

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.