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.

“While recognising that there are some positives in the proposed agreement, the offer of a blank cheque for the renegotiation of staff contracts, with fundamental and far reaching implications for educational standards, is simply not acceptable,” IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, stated.

The Executive of IFUT also decided that the conditions of employment of its members will not be subject to aggregated vote by other unions on the proposed agreement and reserved the right to make whatever decisions are necessary if members’ jobs and conditions are put in jeopardy.

The matter will be put to a full ballot of the union’s members following its Annual Delegate Conference on 24 April next.

The IFUT Press Release is available here.

Mr Robinson warned that the drift in western countries towards commercialised universities and dubious quality providers must be resisted if universities are to preserve their function as reservoirs of research and innovation.

Danish speaker, Jens Vraa-Jensen, of Education International (EI), warned that universities cannot be managed according to market principles and at the same time fulfil their basic mission.

Mr Vraa-Jensen said: “The basic raison d’être for any private enterprise is to create profit for its owners. The purpose of a university is not profit but to spend money in the most appropriate way on teaching students and conducting research to develop the intellectual capacity of future generations and provide the society with new knowledge for future development and welfare”.

Mike Jennings, IFUT General Secretary, said: “Irish universities must not become the pawns of market forces and private speculators, who view education as just another source of profit and their students like customers in a supermarket”.

The IFUT Press Release is available in full here.

Biographical notes of the speakers and outlines of the themes of their talks are available on our seminar page.

The seminar will hear keynote contributions from David Robinson and Jens Vraa-Jensen, two of the foremost world authorities on the topic of the threat posed to universities and academic freedom by marketisation, commercialisation and privatisation.

The seminar will start at 14:30. The full schedule and biographical notes of the speakers and outlines of the themes of their talks are available on our seminar page.

The seven university presidents have also been considering a court challenge against the new Employment Control Framework which some maintain runs counter to the 1997 Universities Act, guaranteeing their independence.

While university presidents are cautious about a legal challenge, IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, said the new stipulation which allows colleges to engage academic staff largely on fixed-term contracts is a clear breach of European employment law.

The article published in The Irish Times of 7 September 2009 is available here and here.

All four unions are gravely concerned that cutbacks already in place are having a detrimental effect on the education system. Staffing and other cutbacks at primary, post-primary and third-level are severely damaging the education system and the country is at risk of suffering a sharp fall in educational standards if the sector is further targeted.

The unions are committed to maintaining the highest standards within the education system, particularly for the disadvantaged in the communities in which members work.

As trade unions, there is also concern for the security of tenure and conditions of service of teachers and lecturers.

The Press Release is available in full here.

The main points of the IFUT policy are:

• The Government’s Employment Policy for the Higher Education Sector is Illegal
• The Government’s Policy is Politically Stupid
• The Government’s Policy is Contradictory and Unworkable
• The Minister’s Policy Will Lead to Higher Drop-out Rates
• The Minister’s Policy is Anti-Democratic
• IFUT Will Oppose These Policies
• IFUT Seeks The Support of University Management in Resisting These Cuts

The IFUT Press Release is available here.

The IFUT policy document is available here.

There has been detailed media comment on the IFUT document. An article published in Industrial Relations News, Volume 32, 9 September 2009, is available here and an article in The Irish Times of 7 September 2009 is available here and here. See the separate News item on this isuue here.

It is calling on the Commission to investigate Ireland’s non-compliance with the fixed term workers directive, and Fixed Term Workers Act, 2003, the statute examined by the Labour Court in the run-up to its decision.

The 2003 Act provides protection to employees in the form of accrued rights, culminating after a set period, in the right to a contract of indefinite duration. However, exemptions on “objective grounds” are provided for.

In February 2009, the Court overturned a ruling by a Rights Commissioner in favour of the academic, Ann Buckley, awarding her a contract of indefinite duration, together with €5000 in compensation.

The full article from Industrial Relations News (Issue 31, 2 September 2009) is available here.