Hike is not enough for universities

The Government has increased educational funding but the increase provided does not come close to meeting the cost of inflation, especially the extra wage bill incurred by benchmarking or Sustaining Progress.

Salaries comprised 75% of non-capital spending, with the result that benchmarking alone will cost the universities an extra €25 million this year.

The seven universities need about 10% extra because they are faced with an overall shortfall of around €38m in 2004.

This will inevitably lead to job cuts, as well as curtailed services and reduced facilities for students. Some measures are already being implemented, such as cuts for research, library funding and further recruitment, in addition to a freeze on filling vacancies.

The university authorities warn that further cuts are inevitable in part-time and permanent tutorial staff, along with lecturing and administrative posts, unless further funding is provided.

While the cutting of some internal research grants and the travel costs of those on academic junkets can be welcomed, the slashing of library budgets is another matter and could have repercussions for standards at the universities.

Having made such cuts, the authorities of the National University of Ireland at Maynooth have still to find an extra 25%. There is only so much that can be cut without seriously affecting standards.

Where is the extra money going to come from? Both University College Dublin and University College Cork have to save more than four times as much money as their Maynooth counterpart.

Some institutions suggest they might not pay the benchmarking increases unless the Government provides extra funding. The Irish Federation of University Teachers is concerned that jobs could be cut next autumn.

Assuming the presidency of the European Council of Education Ministers recently, Minister for Education Noel Dempsey noted that one of his key tasks will be to achieve consensus on the education strategy.

This country is already committed to the Lisbon Agenda, which called for a substantial increase in per capita investment in education in order to make the EU the most competitive knowledge-based economy by 2010.

Universities are considered central to this strategy, but there is a massive shortfall in the per capita provisions for university students and this is on top of stalled research funding last year, as well as a savage reduction in capital funding, which was cut from €51m in 2002 to €14m in 2003.

Thus, it is not surprising that student representatives have denounced the performance of the Mr Dempsey as hypocritical.

Much of the overall problem is the result of Government behaviour.

The minister and his colleagues made lavish pay awards with little consideration for the consequences.

The salary increases were announced without provisions for securing the extra money needed and we are witnessing the downside of that approach.

The shortfall in university funding could be provided from the €900m surplus that Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy recently announced for last year, but the educational sector is only one of the many segments of society clamouring for those funds.