With the numbers of postgraduate students falling in Ireland, Fianna Fail have echoed the long-held concerns of student groups, calling on the government to reverse the “appallingly regressive” removal of postgraduate maintenance grants by the previous Fine Gael-Labour coalition in 2012.
In a press statement, the party’s Spokesperson on Education and Skills, Thomas Byrne, described the restoration of the grants as “absolutely essential”. Their removal, he added, has acted as a “barrier to accessing further education”. Since the grants were removed in 2012 the number of students entering postgraduate degrees has fallen.
In a Dáil debate in May, the Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton, said that the reintroduction of maintenance grants for postgraduate students would cost just over €50 million.
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) have today called on Irish parties to commit to the reintroduction such grants. In a press release USI Deputy President, Jack Leahy, said: “We are urging all political parties to work together to ensure the barriers to accessing education, upward mobility and long-term career progression are broken. We are also calling on other political parties to align their policies and priorities with this commitment and the commitments set out in their manifestos.”
The decision, taken by then-Minister for Education and Skills, Labour’s Ruarí Quinn, was heavily criticised at the time. In July 2012, then Chief Executive of the Higher Education Authority, Tom Boland, called the removal of the grants “inconsistent with the national skills policy”.
In an op-ed for The University Times before the general election, leader of Fianna Fáil, Micheál Martin, condemned the “retrograde” removal and committed his party to reversing the policy.
More recently, the government’s higher education funding working group, chaired by Peter Cassells, recommended reinstating maintenance grants for postgraduate students.
In an email statement to The University Times , President of Trinity’s Graduate Students’ Union (GSU), Shane Collins, described the removal of the grants as having had a “huge impact on accessibility of postgraduate education”.
“We are open to discussing postgraduate issues with all political parties and we of course support the reintroduction of postgraduate maintenance grants. There is no surprise that the numbers of students domestically progressing to PhD study has fallen since the removal of such supports”, he said.
Collins called on the government to “take ownership over the fact that their decision in 2012 has led to this situation”.
USI have also made a direct call to Bruton, asking him to make a public statement on his party’s policy on postgraduate grants. Fine Gael’s election manifesto made no mention of their stance on postgraduate grants.
Byrne also called for a “radical shift in policy” from the government on education, and called on Bruton to “bin the failed policies of the past five years and instead focus on a complete change of approach to our students, teachers and education system in the forthcoming strategy.”
The current cost of a postgraduate degree varies depending on the course. In Trinity, for instance, a student from within the EU may pay as much as €31,000 for a postgraduate degree in the School of Business.
Commenting on the increase in postgraduate fees alongside the removal of grants, Collins said that taking on a postgraduate degree was “increasingly becoming only a viable option to those that can afford it or are in a position take on further debt”.
Fianna Fáil have made higher education a key issue for their party in recent months, especially the issue of funding. While Bruton has still not made public his views on how higher education should be funded, Byrne has been unenthusiastic about the introduction of an income-contingent loan scheme for undergraduate students, describing their impact as “uncertain”.
Speaking to The University Times Fianna Fáil TD Fiona O’Loughlin said: “Anything that we can do to help support students both now and students in the future is very important.”
O’Loughlin, who is also chair of the Committee for Education and Skills committee but was speaking only in her capacity as a TD, said that “education has always been incredibly important to the Fianna Fáil party and we would love to continue that”.
