Education and students the real losers as cost-cutting drives plans to merge ITs
LECTURERS in institutes of technology nationwide are being balloted for industrial action, up to and including strike action this week. The continued availability of all educational courses in Cork Institute of Technology is at stake.
The likely deterioration of the nature and quality of education in the coming years due to merger costs and cutbacks is another serious concern. The future hiking of student fees to cover merger costs is also a very real danger. Potential job losses add further to the mix.
In the dying days of the Dáil, the Government almost succeeded in fully passing the Technological Universities (TU) Bill, which would have legally allowed a merger between CIT and IT Tralee. But the bill was halted.
Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan is said to have been alarmed at the opposition to it by lecturers across the country, particularly those represented by the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI), and other concerned parties.
This bill could be before the new government again in a matter of weeks. The TUI nationally, and particularly in Cork, has campaigned vigorously in lobbying Oireachtas members, and has also waged a strong media campaign to cause the temporary halting of the bill.
The TUI at CIT has pleaded with management to listen, and to engage in a constructive, meaningful dialogue. Nationally, the union has also impeached policymakers, managers of ITs, and the Higher Education Authority to listen to its strong concerns.
To the ordinary parent sending their children to CIT, its merger with IT Tralee to establish the Munster Technological University (TU) is a good thing; that is, unless parents are made aware of the conditions the Government is attaching to it becoming a TU, which poisons the whole development.
The TUI lecturers have no difficulty with moving to a TU. In fact, most see it as a positive development, which affirms the excellent learning environment, courses, and teaching which CIT has offered up to now.
As in all these matters, the devil is in the detail. CIT management has not opened up this debate to the people of Cork. The future of their children is at stake, yet the one-dimensional PR story of the wonders of a TU is their focus, while concealing the very real dangers to students and families.
The TUI is looking to tell people what is actually happening, which it believes is necessary in any democracy. That is why tonight’s public information meeting in Cork is so important. People need to know the full story.
The merger between CIT and IT Tralee is primarily driven by a cost-cutting and rationalisation plan that has been developing steadily in the past 10 years.
Successive policies which have been taken on by governments, from An Bord Snip Nua (2009) to the Hunt report (2011) and the HEA Landscape report (2012), have all called for mergers of the ITs to achieve “economies of scale”, and specifically have called for the non-duplication of courses and rationalisation of courses in the new merged entities. So the big driver for the mergers is not TU status, it is cost cutting.
To prove this, it can be noted that the Government and Higher Education Authority do not guarantee TU status to a merged CIT and IT Tralee entity. This is because the Government will be happy with the cuts to courses and funding as a result of the merger, and because TU status is only a carrot to entice this agenda.
The TUI has asked for the precondition of a merger to be removed as part of the application for TU status. But no, the Government wants the merger and gives no guarantee of TU status.
The practical dangers are clear: A merged CIT and IT Tralee is viewed as one entity. It might be stuck as Munster IT and never become Munster TU.
However, once it is a single entity in either way, any courses which are happening as they are now, in both locations separately, can be viewed as “duplication”.
The most recent blueprint document by the Higher Education Authority is Towards a Future Higher Education Landscape (2012). There is a whole section making it a policy requirement that there be the “elimination of un-necessary duplication” between competing educational providers.
This is driving mergers between Cork and Tralee ITs, between Waterford and Carlow ITs, between the Dublin ITs, and between GMIT, Letterkenny IT, and Sligo IT.
The report wants these to merge and rationalise courses, stating: “Higher education providers within a region (and where appropriate nationally) will proactively come together to examine the scope for rationalisation of programmes.” There is no doubt.
CIT and IT Tralee have answered this call and started working towards a merger, shortly after this document was published. The Higher Education Authority set up the expert international group to lay conditions.
In the meantime, CIT and Tralee management engaged in a whistlestop tour of both campuses, telling all staff, lecturers, administration, and others that this was a done deal. There was no negotiation.
The expert group published a stage 3 report, affirming, as expected, the need for rationalisation within any merger of CIT and IT Tralee. The HEA wrote to CIT management saying all recommendations would have to be met and there would be little chance of extra funding.
The same expert group wrote a set of recommendations for DIT. An analysis of both reports found over 70% of the content was similar, despite the fact they were supposed to be tailored for each region’s needs. The expert panel in fact, never visited CIT or Tralee IT.
Unless the whole nature of the merger, the TU bill, and the whole rationalisation is stopped or dramatically changed, we are likely to have Cork students being deprived of courses currently on offer in CIT and picking up the rental/transport costs of moving to Tralee and vice versa; or some courses being delivered live in person by lecturers in Tralee, while CIT students will have to make do with an IT link to the lecture.
Students want to have a lecturer in person not a PC screen in front of them. If they wanted a virtual degree, they could do one from Harvard University.
Further, the €6.7m cost of the CIT/IT Tralee merger is likely to drive up tuition fees (given no extra funding will be supplied), cause further cuts to equipment, more casualisation of lecturer work, and declining CIT facilities.
In addition, the student loan scheme currently being planned by the Government, which well-serves the national mergers, will force students to take out long-term loans which will take years to repay.
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