Third-level spend ‘puts economy plan at risk’

GOVERNMENT spending on third-level must increase significantly or it will fail in its own stated aim of developing a research economy, a leading education expert has warned.

Professor of Education and vice president of University College Cork (UCC), Áine Hyland noted recent reports of falling investment in higher education on a per-student basis, at a time when the Government is aiming to increase the number of quality graduates to meet the economy’s expanding jobs needs.

Announcing the strategy last December, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said a fourth-level system of research is needed to be the engine of Ireland’s future growth.

“In spite of the Government’s avowed support for higher education, per-capita expenditure in the sector has fallen significantly in real terms, leaving Irish higher education in a vulnerable situation vis-à-vis its international competitors,” Prof Hyland said.

She told a UCC conferring ceremony that a recent report pointed out that, while public spending on primary and second level education has increased by more than half since 2000, it has risen by only 17% for higher education.

“This imbalance will have to be redressed in the next few budgets, if there is to be any hope that Ireland can compete with other OECD countries,” she said.

Prof Hyland chaired the Government’s Commission on the Points System in the late 1990s and, more recently, the statutory Educational Disadvantage Committee.

According to the OECD Education at a Glance report published this week, Ireland is one of just three countries which increased education spending by more than half since 1995, but spending on third level education here fell between 2000 and 2003.

Jack O’Connor, president of the country’s largest union SIPTU, referred to the revelation in the same report that almost 10% of those aged between 15 and 19 are unemployed.

“On the very day the CSO informed us we had passed the two million jobs mark, the OECD was telling us the number of teenagers dropping out of school and becoming unemployed was rising sharply. The 9.2% rate of unemployment among these young people is more than double the national average,” he said.

“A more interventionist approach is urgently needed, especially for early school leavers”.