UCD GOVERNING AUTHORITY ELECTION

UCD Governing Authority Election 2008

2008-11-04T13:11:00.000-08:00

I'm glad to recommend Seamus Sweeney in the upcoming elections.

Seamus Sweeney/ MacSuibhne is running for the graduate election to UCD’s Governing Authority. To many he needs no introduction, but for those with hazier recollections of college, here’s one anyway:

**** Seamus MacSuibhne (yes, Sweeney). He is a tall Irish man with red hair and the massive mind which will save us. Now, there is something going on with UCD and Seamus must solve it. He admires Tintin, he rises above mantels, he breathes the air over 6' 2". He has a daughter. His job is to fix the world for people.

And: UCD needs some sorting: Support the MacSuibhne mind because it will obliterate these problems and pulse onward to greater things. Read below for more on how you can help.****

If that alone is not compelling, read Seamus’ statement below. Having been convinced here’s what you need to do:

1. Make sure you are registered to vote– especially if you have moved or changed your name in the past five years. It helps if you remember your student number, or at least what degree you got. (http://www.ucd.ie/registry/academicsecretariat/GE2008.htm).

2. Spread the word – all UCD graduates (including Masters and H.Dips) can vote – get them to join this group, make sure they are registered.

3. Ballot papers will be mailed at the end of October. Vote MacSuibhne no. 1, and send it back.

4. Post any endorsements, comments, questions for Seamus etc. to the wall.

From the man himself:

A university is not a corporation and should not be run as such. This is not to say that the highest standards of accountability should not be followed, or that the university should not strive to continually improve its performance in all aspects. All institutions need to respond to the changing world around them.

The activities of a university, however, are such that they cannot be reduced to a simple count of numbers of Ph. D. students or of papers published in international journals. This approach fails to capture the complexity of any discipline, and is completely foreign to many disciplines within the university. Ultimately any reductionist approach to measuring a university’s performance will fail. Diversity is a much-abused buzzword these days, but true diversity of perspective and approach is fundamental to the modern university.

The expectations, experience, skills and knowledge of all of the university community – students, teaching staff, researchers, staff, graduates – need to be respected and incorporated. “Change” has too often been used as a buzzword to stifle dissent and force through decisions take without proper consultation, or with only cursory respect to the opinions of those most affected by the change.

As I have been a student, a practitioner and now have a teaching role within UCD, I feel I am ideally placed to bring these perspectives to the Governing Authority.

Seamus Mac Suibhne (Sweeney) – graduated MB BCh BAO 2002. Currently Special Lecturer in Psychiatry in St Vincent’s University Hospital/UCD. Involved in undergraduate psychiatry curriculum design. Introduced a multidisciplinary lecture series entitled “Psychiatry and Society” for medical students. While an undergraduate, involved in the University Observer and the Philosophy Society.

More info on facebook!

Thanks for your support all

2004-12-04T09:37:00.000-08:00

As I thought likely Mary O Keefe got that seat, which means I didn't get in! But I think this was useful campaign, certainly a learning experience for me. Hopefully next time round the SU will have a plan long in advance to secure at least one of these seats. I started late, and had other demands on my resources during the election. I think one of the lessons I learned most during the campaign is that democratisation is the key issue going forward. Even an elected representative on the GA is limited by a rigid set of stipulations, and the threat of being kicked off if not behaving.
Anyway, congratulations to the people who got in. Mary O Keefe is an unknown quantity, but as a former mature student and nurse, I think she may possibly be receptive to the SU view on things.
Finally, but most importantly I would like to that the SU for their support, that includes everyone on the executive, and the council, and people who helped me stuff quite a few envelopes. I want to specially mention Fergal, Dan Finn, and the irrepressible James Redmond for their practical help. It was great to discover that energtic and critically minded political committment is alive among those *just a little* younger than me. Also thanks to Global Action (Dave and Dave's MA also!), Labour Youth, Kathleen Lynch and to anyone who I have failed to mention above. Results below, I don't have any figures yet.

ELECTION OF THREE MEMBERS BY GRADUATES

The following candidates have been elected:

MANNING, Maurice

O' KEEFFE, Mary Theresa

DE BHALDRAITHE-MARSH, Cliona Ellis

Message from John Baker re GA meeting on Strategic Plan

2004-12-01T09:10:00.000-08:00

Dear friends and colleagues,

At a meeting of UCD staff yesterday, called by the UCD trade unions
in association with the UCD Students Union, it was unanimously agreed
that the outgoing Governing Authority should be lobbied not to adopt
any Strategic Plan at its meeting of 7 December, because no one has
yet seen the Plan and because (contrary to the Universities Act and
Sustaining Progress) there has been no serious process of
consultation with staff about it. It is also inappropriate for the
outgoing GA to make such long-term decisions at the end of its term
of office.

People were invited to communicate this point of view to members of
the GA directly, and/or to participate in a lobby of the GA to be
held at the Radisson Hotel on Tuesday next at 1.30 pm.

The list of GA members is provided at the following web site and is
reproduced below.

http://www.ucd.ie/govauth/members.htm

There is the also a list of such email addresses of external members
as could be located (courtesty of Sara O'Sullivan).

If you feel able to lobby any of these GA members in advance of
Tuesday's meeting, the unionised staff of UCD would be most grateful.

An appropriate form of appeal might be as follows:

As a
member of the staff / student / graduate of University College Dublin
/ citizen of Ireland
I am very concerned at the speed at which the current Strategic
Planning process in UCD is being conducted and in particular at the
fact that, contrary to the Universities Act and Sustaining Progress,
there has been no serious process of consultation with staff about
it. I also believe that is inappropriate for the outgoing Governing
Authority to make such long-term decisions at the end of its term of
office.

I would therefore call on you as a member of that Governing Authority
to refrain from adopting any Strategic Plan at your meeting of 7
December.
John Baker
Equality Studies Centre, University College Dublin

Critque of OECD report on Higher Education

2004-11-20T13:44:00.000-08:00

As a proponent of an equality based agenda, I endorse entirely Professor Kathleen Lynch's critique of the recent OECD report on higher education in Ireland. She has saved me the trouble of detailing it's failings. The main problem is the value system within which it understands education. The Irish Times title for her article speaks of "reeking of utilitarianism".
See http://www.ucd.ie/esc/html/itdoc.doc

The report also advocates a return to undergraduate fees, and the replacement of academics on governing authorities with "lay" members. Kathleen has also recently presented an excellent outline of why privatisation of education is problematic in a democratic society.
See the Equality Studies announcements page for slides of her talk, which was given to the Global Action society at UCD. In conclusion she gives six reasons why democratic public control of education matters:

1.People have a right to education – Article 24of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14 (ICESCR)
2.Education is indispensable for realising other rights: education credentials play a crucial role in mediating access to other goods, including employment, cultural goods and political participation
3.Education enables one to overcome other social disadvantages. In a market-driven private system this becomes a secondary objective
4.Education has an intrinsic value for the development of the individual – for the exercise of capabilities, choices and freedoms
5.Education has a care function as well as a development function: this cannot be guaranteed in a privatised system
6.Education is a Public Good as well as a Personal Good- it enriches cultural, social, political and economic life locally and globally. In a commercially-driven system the public good dimension can be easily sidelined

Regarding " utilitarianism"I would add:
The problem is not with the pursuit of technical and economic goals but with the uncritical and unreflective pursuit of such goals. Economic and technical pursuits need a moral and social context. Moreover, social, civic and cultural goals must be valued in and of themselves. The tradition of the academy is central to civilization itself, and at the core of that tradition is the humanities, the liberal arts and the social sciences. Universties provide a crucial independent arena for reflection and critque in open societies, and a context in which technical and other goals can be subjectied to deeper questioning. They input crucially into the civic and civil fabric of society.

Students Union President on the Brady agenda

2004-11-15T04:17:00.000-08:00

from the letters page of The Irish Times

Dear Madam,
As the President of UCD’s Students’ Union I read with interest your editorial of the 3^rd of November celebrating the 150^th anniversary of UCD's founding. I have to say I disagree with your assessment of Dr Hugh Brady’s vision for a new UCD.
I agree with you that in very many ways the life of University College Dublin mirrors the life of the modern Irish state. Presently in Ireland we see a struggle between people who see the state as having a minimal role in providing services to its citizens and those who want to see properly funded health, transport and education services. This struggle is alive and well in UCD.
Education is under the threat of a creeping form of privatisation. The Government, the Higher Education Authority, the OECD and Dr Hugh Brady have all joined together to push for a reliance on corporate funding. They base their vision for Irish universities on American colleges like Harvard and Yale, both of which charge tens of thousands of dollars per year.
Students and academics are fearful of the University that Dr Hugh Brady envisages. His vision of a university is one which takes Newman’s idea of a University where learning and knowledge are the ends in themselves, and twists it around to one where learning and knowledge are only worthwhile if you can offer something to the corporate world.
According to Dr Brady, this university is now to be one where research for private companies takes priority over everything else. His is a University where teaching and students take a back seat. Evidence of this lies in the fact that of the 7 new pathways to professorship that Dr Brady published recently, none have anything to do with an academics ability to teach or give interesting engaging lectures.
I was personally proud to be asked to join in the celebrations that UCD put on for the 150^th but found that events were sadly lacking for either the general staff or ordinary student population. This fact adds legitimacy to the fears of students that they, under the new vision of Dr Brady, are merely incidental to the running of a university.
This is why students and a lot of staff in UCD don’t support Dr Hugh Brady’s new vision for UCD and wish for a University more like the one Cardinal John Henry Newman envisaged where knowledge is an end in itself. We wish to see a University that is for the benefit of all the people of Ireland not a University that is solely for the benefit of the business community. As the Cardinal himself put it when speaking of what is good for a university.
“Pursuits, which issue in nothing, and still maintain their ground for ages, which are regarded as admirable, though they have not as yet proved themselves to be useful, must have their sufficient end in themselves, whatever it turn out to be” (Cardinal John Henry Newman)

Is mise le meas

Fergal Scully

Uachtarán, Aontas Na Mac Léinn

What is the Governing Authority?

2004-11-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

The Governing Authority is the key decision-making body in UCD bringing the President to account, and deciding on fee increases, new building, private sponsorhip, and all kinds of college policy. Among the membership are:

3 Elected by UCD graduates
3 Nominated by Minister of Education
8 County councillors to be nominated by the General Council of County Councils
2 members nominated by the NUI
Lord Mayor of Dublin
2 from organisations eg INO, Aontas
1 Elected by postgrads
3 Elected Officers of the Students Union
3 Elected by Non academic Staff
5 Elected by the Non-Professorial Academic Staff
6 Elected by the Professorial Academic Staff
Registrar of the College
President of the College

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64996 outlines the members of the outgoing GA who voted to increase postgrad fees by 10%.
Notice that there are 2 graduate candidates among them, Matt Harmey and Cliona De Bhaldraithe. Maurice Manning failed to attend the crucial meeting.

Can I vote?

2004-11-06T05:47:00.000-08:00

All graduates of UCD are eligible to vote in this election. But if you had a vote in the last election (Dec 2000) and did not use it, your name will probably have been removed from the register. If you ring the registrars office soon they will send you out a ballot anyway.

If you have moved, and a ballot has already been sent out, the registrar will not send a second ballot.

If you graduated since December 2000 you will automatically receive a ballot.

Queries to: registrars.office@ucd.ie +353-1-7161430.

Keeping the gates open: Keep free fees.

2004-11-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

The labour party's Jan O Sullivan has excellently summarised the arguments for free fees in her paper Keeping the gates open. Free fees form a congruent part of a social-democratic vision of education which I happen to also share:
She argues "Education is so fundamental to personal development and the fulfilment of individual potential, that it is seen by social democrats as an integral part of the social democratic concept of social citizenship." In detail, she knocks on the head many of the myths proposed by those who support the return of fees.
She concludes: "When fees for third level education were abolished, it was the first step in forcing open the gates of many institutions – institutions whose gates had up to then been effectively closed to people below a certain level of income. Ireland’s future, as an inclusive society and dynamic economy, depends on those gates being kept open."

Daniel Finn backs Daniel Dunne

2004-10-29T14:41:00.000-07:00

Daniel Finn, the Students Union research and development officer, has generously offered to support my own campaign, citing the fact that he will probably be studying abroad from next year. Daniel has been incredibly supportive of my candidacy, and I would like to thank him publicly for his positive input. He has authored the documents below which give a background to current higher education issues:

THE PERILS OF PRIVATE FUNDING by Daniel Finn

Many commentators have claimed that the answer to the funding problems in third-level education is for universities to rely more on private funding. This approach has already been put into practice in Britain, Australia, and above all the United States, so we can see in advance what the results might be if we went down the same route. Reliance on corporate funding in these countries has had a deeply harmful effect. It has distorted research priorities, compromised academic freedom, and stifled debate on campus. The proper role of the university in society has been undermined. Nor has much been offered in return: the existence of private sponsorship has been used by governments as an excuse to cut back public funding of third-level education. With this experience in mind, Irish students should oppose moves in this direction by our university sector.

CONTEXT

In the countries mentioned, universities first came under pressure to seek corporate sponsorship because of cutbacks in public spending. It was seen as a temporary expedient until future governments reversed these cutbacks. But once the principle that universities could take private money was established, governments used this as an excuse to extend cutbacks. It’s easy to argue that, if universities take 10% of their money from private companies, why can’t it be 20%, or 40%? In Australia, for example, 85% of college revenue came from the state in 1987; by 2002, that figure had fallen to 44%. Between 1983 and 1993, public research funds in Britain fell in real terms by 20%.

So we should be aware in advance: private funding is unlikely to be in addition to existing state revenue, rather, it will be used as a substitute for that revenue. Government ministers and university administrators may paint a glowing picture of abundant wealth that will solve all the funding problems of Irish universities, but this just isn’t realistic. In practice, by opting for private funding, universities will just be exchanging one source of revenue for another.

PROBLEMS:

1) NARROWING OF RESEARCH

What problems have been caused by reliance on private funding? First of all, it has led to a narrowing of research, as companies demand that universities concentrate on research that will deliver short-term profits. In scientific research, this has led to a concentration on applied science, using existing knowledge to deliver commercial results, at the expense of experiments that will create innovations.

Worse, research that would be of great use to society as a whole has been neglected because it conflicts with corporate priorities. For example, five times as much money is spent in British universities on research into oil and gas as on research into renewable sources of energy. This is hardly surprising, when there are more than 1,000 research projects being funded by the fossil fuel industries. The need for research into renewable energy is much greater; but when companies are allowed to dictate research priorities, social needs have to be ignored.

In the same way, sponsorship of medical research by drug companies in the US has seen universities concentrate on drugs to treat non-lethal ailments that affect First World patients; this is where the big money is to be made. Meanwhile, the search for a malaria vaccine, which would be of incalculable benefit to people in poor countries, but not quite as profitable, has been neglected.

2) RESEARCH CENSORSHIP

This narrowing of research priorities is bad enough. Even worse, it has led to the suppression of research findings that conflict with the commercial interests of the companies sponsoring research. There have been a number of high-profile cases of this in the United States. In 1995, medical researchers at the University of California carried out trials on 2 drugs, one of which was more expensive than the other and produced by the Boots company. It was found that the cheaper drug had exactly the same effect as the more expensive equivalent; this had the potential to save patients $365m a year, while costing Boots $600m. Boots had sponsored the research, and blocked its publication. After a public outcry, the findings were finally published two years later.

In 1998, the same thing happened in the University of Toronto. The medical company Apotex wanted tests done on one of its drugs. The scientist Dr. Nancy Olivieri carried out these tests, but discovered that in some cases, the drug might have life-threatening side effects. Apotex stopped the tests and threatened to sue Olivieri if she went public. When she defied these threats and went public, the college authorities sided with Apotex and demoted her to a lower-ranking position.

These cases were exposed to public scrutiny because the researchers involved were brave enough to go public and take the ensuing flak. In the majority of cases, corporate interference doesn’t generate any publicity. A 1994 survey of research partnerships in US universities found that in 35% of cases, companies exercise the right to stop publication of findings. Writing about the UK, journalist George Monbiot concludes: “I have been unable to find a university anywhere in the UK which does not accept corporate money for research in which the companies involved have an immediate interest.”

3) LOSS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Corporations have also been able to exercise broader influence over what goes on in university life. In 1995, the Centre for Human Ecology at Edinburgh University was abolished. Its work had highlighted the harmful effect on the environment of a number of high-profile projects and government policies. The university came under intense pressure from Scottish companies hostile to this work; one businessman told the college authorities: “You really will have to gag Alastair McIntosh [the head of the Centre]. His hard-hitting article in the Glasgow Herald debunking the Government’s Science and Technology White Paper will alienate most, if not all, wealth creators.” Given the university’s increasing dependence on private funding, it was in no position to resist this pressure.

In America, corporations have also tried to gag students and academics critical of their policies. When the University of Wisconsin signed a sponsorship deal with Reebok in 1995, it inserted a clause to the effect that “the University will promptly take all reasonable steps necessary to address any remark by any University employee, agent or representative, including a Coach, that disparages Reebok, Reebok’s products, or the advertising agency or others connected with Reebok.” This clause was removed after a campaign by students and faculty members against sweatshop labour in Asia; but in other cases, gag orders were only revealed after contracts had already been signed; the University of Kentucky has a similar arrangement with Nike.

At Kent State University, Coca-Cola has exclusive vending rights. When the university branch of Amnesty International launched a campaign to highlight Coke’s dealings with the military dictatorship in Nigeria, they were denied funding to bring over a Nigerian speaker after being asked “is he going to speak negatively about Coca-Cola?”

Much more could be said on the subject. But it should be clear enough that if Irish universities go down the same road as their counterparts in

Britain

or the US, it will have serious negative consequences. Nor will these harmful side effects be counter-balanced by a beneficial increase in funding, as our governments are likely to use the existence of private sponsorship as an excuse to cutback public spending. Students and academics should oppose moves in this direction, and argue instead for an increase in government funding. A specific corporation tax for education, as has been suggested by some, would ensure that companies contribute their fair share to an education system from which they greatly benefit, without giving them unhealthy influence in our schools and universities.

More by Daniel Finn (on the OECD report) here:
http://danieldunne.com/ucd-governing/2004_09_08_authority.html

UCD SU Hub Forum Discussion

2004-10-25T16:56:00.000-07:00

I have been adding my 2 cents to the Student Union's discussion thread on the Governing Authority and related issues. It has been an opportunity to outline my policy orientation. Please add comments and widen up the debate everyone!
http://www.ucdsu.net/newswire.php?story_id=188

Profile for inclusion with election papers

2004-10-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

By decision of the Governing Authority, candidates for election are invited to
submit a personal profile, not exceeding 40 words, which will be circulated with the
election literature. I have submitted the following:

"Postgraduate researcher in politics, specializing in civic education and
social exclusion; Daniel advocates the extension of college outreach
programs, an equality-based agenda, a governing authority more responsive to
students and staff, and protection of the university's independent role in
society."

Nomination for graduate positions on UCD governing body

2004-10-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Councillor Aidan Culhane and my mother Theresa Barnes for today nominating me to stand for the Election by Graduates of Members of The Governing Authority of University College Dublin. Thanks also to former governing authority member Frank Buckley for his advice and encouragement, and also to Michael McLoughlin of the National Youth Federation.

Hugh Brady on the OECD report

2004-10-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

“The OECD report was by far the most significant analysis of the higher education sector performed over the last 30 years. It lays out a roadmap to Ireland’s economic, cultural and social development.”

Questions and Answers Sep 20 2004

OECD REPORT CRITIQUE by Daniel Finn

2004-09-08T06:07:00.000-07:00

The recent OECD report has been presented by the government, the educational establishment, and many journalists as the last word on third-level education reform. We have been told that the OECD is a fair-minded, non-partisan source, whose recommendations should be accepted without reservation. In fact, the OECD has a clear ideological agenda, and its report is a deeply flawed piece of work. It urges that the free fees scheme be abolished, that universities establish closer ties with business, that an Australian-style loan system be introduced. It can easily be shown that all these changes, if implemented, would have a deeply harmful effect on our education system, and Irish society as a whole.

THE NATURE OF THE OECD

First of all, it’s essential that we understand the nature of the OECD. It is not by any means a neutral body. The OECD is very much part of the neoliberal consensus that dominates the institutions charged with managing the international economy. It speaks with the same voice as the WTO, the IMF and the G8. Their mantras of privatisation and competition are applied to any subject. In particular, the advocates of neoliberalism demand that public services be sold off to private investors; that systems providing free health care and free education to all citizens should be replaced with a model where “consumers” are forced to pay.

Our government is one of the most enthusiastic European advocates of this agenda. This privatisation mania has already been applied to public transport. By choosing the OECD to produce this report, they knew that they would be sure to receive advice in line with their own ideological preconceptions and prejudices.

INDICTMENT OF CURRENT SYSTEM

The report does provide useful information about the failings of the current system (these failings were already known, but it is valuable to have them confirmed and summarised). It demonstrates that education is underfunded by comparison with other OECD countries: “Ireland’s investment into its education system as a whole is lower than the OECD average. In public expenditure it ranks only 25^th out of 30 OECD countries and with private expenditure added to public, 23^rd out of 27 countries for whom data are available.” Between 1995 and 2000, public expenditure declined from 4.7% to 4.1% as a proportion of GDP.

Along with this lack of funding goes an alarming class divide in access to education: “nearly 100% of the children of higher professionals and over 80% of the children of employers and managers enter higher education as compared with only around 20% of the children of employers and managers enter higher education as compared with only around 20% of the children of unskilled and semi-skilled manual workers … within the university sector the offspring of the higher professional group clustered in medicine, law, veterinary science and dentistry.” The situation is particularly bad for working-class Dubliners: “while Dublin provides 60% of all first degree places nationally it has itself the lowest age participation rate in tertiary education with the rate in central Dublin estimated at no more than 16%.”

This problem is compounded by discrimination against part-time students: “if the figures for the National College of Ireland are excluded, part-time numbers make up only 20% of total student numbers … part-time students are not eligible for maintenance grants and have to pay fees … discriminating between part-time and full-time students in this way creates a severe disincentive to students.”

Not only is this inegalitarian system unjust, it will also have damaging consequences for Ireland’s economy in the long run. All authorities agree that Ireland needs a highly-educated workforce. But a decline in the birth rate will see a major fall in student numbers unless barriers to access are removed: “HEA [the Higher Education Authority] projects an increase in the age participation rate to over 66% by 2015 but this will require a significant improvement in the staying on rates of pupils from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.”

FREE FEES

However, the policies suggested by the OECD cannot offer any solution to these problems; in fact, they will make them worse. Media attention has focused on the call for the abolition of the free fees scheme introduced in 1995. The report claims that “the free fees policy is inequitable because it provides substantial subsidies to students who families could well afford to pay tuition fees.” It also claims that “no evidence was produced throughout our review that the decision in 1995 to remit fees for first degree study had more than a limited, if any, impact on the disparity of participation rates amongst the different social-occupational classes.”

This is much too simplistic a view. The same argument was put forward when Donogh O’Malley abolished fees for secondary education; this move was also presented as a gift to the middle classes. At the time, it was very rare for the children of working-class families to reach Leaving Cert level. It took decades for this pattern to shift.

The same can be said of free fees for third-level education. But already, research by Patrick Clancy has shown that participation by the children of those in the low-to-middle income bracket, which had been declining, has increased since the mid-nineties. There would have been a more dramatic improvement if the abolition of fees had been accompanied by other measures to remove barriers to access, such as the inadequate grant system.

The argument that money to improve primary and secondary education, again advanced by the OECD report, can only be found by abolishing the free fees scheme, is totally false. This argument is an attempt to set different social groups at each other’s throats in competition for scarce resources, when they should be campaigning together for an increase in the education budget across the board. It’s quite right to say that the well-off should contribute to the education system: that’s what the tax system is there for.

THE AUSTRALIAN MODEL

The report also suggests as an alternative to fees the introduction of a Graduate Contribution Scheme. This is explicitly modelled on the Australian Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS); one of the members of the report team was John Dawkins, the former Minister for Education who introduced the HECS in Australia. The damaging social effects of this measure must be pointed out.

Before Dawkins became education minister, Australia had a free fees scheme similar to the Irish one. This was replaced with the HECS. At first, students were expected to pay 20% of the average cost of their courses; these payments would be deferred until graduates were earning the average wage. Subsequently, a “differential” HECS was introduced. Courses were divided into 3 bands. In all 3 bands, the amount students were expected to pay increased dramatically, to an average of 40% of costs (including research costs not related to teaching). Over time, the government reduced the income threshold below which graduates would not have to begin repayments as far as it possibly could without hitting benefit recipients (this would have meant taking money from itself - obviously a nonsensical policy). Repayment is now triggered when a graduate earns a measly 77% of the average weekly wage.

This has discouraged participation by students from working-class backgrounds, who are more likely to be “debt averse” because of personal experience of debt. Those who do reach third-level are saddled with huge debts for many years after graduating. Australian economists and financial papers now refer routinely to the so-called “Generation HECS” of under-40s who have been unable to buy their own homes because of student debts (this in turn pushes rent levels upwards). For a more detailed account of the Australian experience, see: http://www.ucdsu.net/newswire.php?story_id=161&results_offset=40

We should learn from this experience. When free fees were abolished in Australia, the move was accompanied by firm promises that the amount paid by students would be modest, and all possible steps would be taken to ensure disadvantaged students were looked after. But once the floodgates were opened, charges on students rose and rose (between 1995 and 2001, HECS charges rose by 70%), while the disadvantaged were left to fend for themselves. The prospect of massive debts has discouraged many from ever attending college, while those who do find their course choices limited by financial barriers, and are saddled with repayments that lock them out of home ownership indefinitely. It is scarcely believable that the OECD should claim that the HECS “has been market tested successfully in Australia”.

CORPORATE FUNDING

The experience of other countries should also lead us to question another suggestion for extra funding: that universities should develop closer ties with the private sector (for example, the report argues; “Irish tertiary education institutions are over dependent on public funding; less reliance on the state would make them more competitive”). In countries like Australia, Britain and above all the United States, the effects of reliance on private funding have been deeply harmful to universities. Firstly, private funding has not been a complement to government investment; rather, it has been an excuse for the state to cut its own spending.

Secondly, it has compromised the role of universities by allowing corporations a large say in what goes into courses. Academic courses should not be dictated by narrow corporate requirements; education does involve gaining qualifications that are useful for the workplace, but it is much broader than that. It is unacceptable that subjects considered “irrelevant” by business should be starved of funding or abolished altogether, as has happened in countries reliant on corporate funding. Thirdly, corporate funding has distorted research in many fields, as companies demand that universities carry out their research for them. In the US, this has led medical research to focus on areas that will be profitable to medical companies, while neglecting research of greater value to society. Worst of all, academic freedom has been compromised as companies demand the suppression of research findings damaging to their commercial interests.

ALTERNATIVES

In summary, we can say that the OECD report highlights the problems accurately, but offers “solutions” that will actually make things worse. Its dogmatic prescriptions have little to recommend them. Of course, this raises the question: what is the alternative? This question can easily be answered. The solution is to raise education funding across the board. Primary and secondary schools should be funded properly, the grants system should be revamped, and the free fees scheme should remain in place. The money to pay for such investment is there; what is required is progressive taxation.

It is often said that “public opinion” is hostile to increased taxation. This is misleading; it would be more accurate to say that the portion of the public which votes for the Progressive Democrats (a small minority) is hostile to increased taxation on their income and property. A minority should not be allowed to impose their will on the rest of society. If we want a world-class education system, we will have to insist that those who have benefited most from society’s wealth should accept their fair share of the tax burden.