USI tells business to fund schools

THE Government and the business community should be less hypocritical and more giving towards Irish education, Union of Students in Ireland (USI) president Will Priestley said yesterday.

He said the Government was boasting about creating a knowledge-based economy on one hand while it cuts budgets for third-level colleges on the other.

“Education Minister Noel Dempsey and his colleagues are talking about increasing access to higher education but Social and Family Affairs Minister Mary Coughlan has refused to even meet us for the past two years about restrictions in the Back to Education Allowance,” Mr Priestley said.

In their submission to an OECD review of higher education in Ireland, the USI proposed a 2% rise on corporation tax to raise €890 million, which would pay for third-level tuition fees three times over. Mr Priestley said there were fears the OECD report next autumn will suggest some form of student contribution, either in the form of fees or a loans scheme.

At the USI annual congress in Ennis yesterday, Mr Priestley said the business community talked a lot about public-private partnerships but it should put its money where its mouths is.

“Irish employers are the ones who’ll benefit from more and better graduates. Our education system and the highly skilled graduates it produces are what will bring the economy forward because EU accession countries will offer lower corporation tax to overseas investors,” he said.

In response to suggestions from Mr Dempsey that colleges should seek more private funding from industry and other sources, the USI congress passed a motion calling for a campaign against privatisation of public third-level institutions.

There was also a call for a mix of school-leavers and graduates to be allowed study medicine, rather than the graduate-only model proposed by Mr Dempsey.

“Restricting entry to graduates is a white flag to bring in fees because postgraduate programmes do not have free tuition,” said USI education officer Brighid Breathnach.

A motion was also passed, calling for the handling of student grants to be passed from local councils and VECs to the Department of Social and Family Affairs to ensure quicker processing and payment.