Cuts ‘force universities to find €1,000 per student’

UNIVERSITY bosses have to find an extra €1,000 for every student each year because of effective cuts in government funding, it was claimed yesterday.

The Irish Universities Association, which represents the heads of the seven universities, estimates the public funding received for each student in 2006 was almost €5,400.

But the corresponding figure in 2001 was €4,604, which the association equates to €6,465 in 2006 prices. A previous report shows that the per-student funding from the Government fell by almost a fifth between 1995 and 2000.

Association director Ned Costello said its calculations are liberal and do not take account of research overheads, which are not always covered by grant funding.

“One of the biggest effects of this funding fall in real terms can be seen in the much bigger groups for lectures, which means less individual time for students.

“It could turn into a type of grind school for Leaving Certificate where you just give people a set of facts or instead of exploring them and encouraging critical thinking,” said Mr Costello.

The other fear is that the quality of learning experienced by students is falling because the focus of capital spending is on research facilities instead of teaching buildings and equipment.

“If you walk around most campuses, the conditions people are learning and working in is appalling, a lot of these places are antiquated and haven’t changed since the 1980s. You can’t cherry-pick the parts of a system you want to be world class,” Mr Costello added.

The €526 million being given to universities for current spending this year is almost €6m less than their 2007 allocation, according to the Government’s spending estimates.

This funding is for wages and salaries of academic and administration staff, along with services such as libraries and equipment for undergraduate teaching.

The worst-hit is the University of Limerick where funding is down 8% to €56.4m this year, while Dublin City University’s budget has dropped €3m or 5.6% to €49.5m.

University College Cork received a 5% increase to €85m, while the funding for University College Dublin, the country’s largest third-level college, of €130.2m is a mere €34,000 more than last year.

A Department of Education spokesman said that university funding has risen from €675m in 2005 to €836m this year, and is two-and-a-half times what it was in 1997.

In that 11 years, more than 45,000 additional third-level places have been created and overall investment in the sector, including institutes of technology, has more than doubled to over €2bn.

The Irish Federation of University Teachers last week raised concerns about the commercialisation of campuses driven by the need to raise income from research. They believe that the changing focus is placing student welfare and academic standards under threat, as universities are being run more like businesses instead of educational institutions.