Irish Federation of University Teachers

IFUT welcomes the unequivocal call in the National Strategy for Irish Higher Education (“The Hunt Report”) for a substantial increase in funding for Higher Education.
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 announcement by the HEA that there are now students from 139 countries studying here only serves to illustrate the diversity of educational, social and cultural challenges faced by third-level institutions and staff in assisting these students to adapt and gain from their time here, Mike Jennings, IFUT General Secretary, has said.
“It is immensely frustrating [...]

In a letter to the editor of The Irish Times and published on 4 September 2009, IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, writes:
“We impose financial charges (for example for refuse collection, water supply, etc) as an instrument to discourage usage. Yet we are expected to suspend our disbelief when the Minister for Education says that re-imposing [...]

The Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) welcomes the efforts by Fine Gael to find a means of dealing with the chronic underfunding of our higher education system without doing the serious damage to participation rates which the reintroduction of undergraduate fees would inevitably cause.
“Whilst Fine Gael’s proposals would require some further discussion and fine [...]