We are still waiting for the solution to the higher education funding crisis. Two years after the last Fine Gael-led government formed a higher education funding working group, commonly referred to as the Cassells group, and six months after the group was supposed to have completed its report, all signs suggest that we can expect publication of the report “shortly”.
Almost a quarter of the more than 80 editorials published by this particular Editorial Board, which is due to finish its term tonight, have been concerned with the higher education funding crisis. It is, without doubt, the most important issue facing students, academics and higher educational institutions in decades.
The Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton, has stated that once the report is published, it will be referred to the Oireachtas Education Committee. This, on its own, sounds altogether logical, and a cross-party decision significantly reduces the chances that we will see the imposition of an increase in tuition fees in conjunction with a government-supported loan scheme.
This is because, before the general election, Fianna Fáil committed to freezing the student contribution charge at €3,000 for five years. Sinn Féin pledged to progressively eliminate fees over the course of a Dáil term. Labour pledged to a €500 reduction. The Social Democrats pledged to reduce it by €1,000 over the course of a Dáil term. Fine Gael, meanwhile, made no commitments, and said they would wait for the report – even though it had been finished by the time their manifesto was created. All committed to an increase in investment, something that is urgently needed.
However, the cross-party committee will presumably take its time to deliberate, and will itself produce its own findings and recommendations based on the findings of the Cassells report. As such, the political sphere will be drowning in recommendations and findings, and there, once again, seems like there is no impetus for a decision.
This is absolutely why the Irish Universities Association, the Irish Federation of University Teachers, the Union of Students in Ireland, SIPTU, IMPACT, the Teachers Union of Ireland and anyone else with a vested interest in education should not hold back any longer. The political class – which has presided over the “managed decline” of Ireland’s once world-beating universities – no longer has any excuse to delay decisions. This is not a time for quiet lobbying efforts, coffee with politicians in Buswells or press releases and communications strategies, but rather the most vocal and direct action possible. Anything else would represent the abject and utter failure of these movements, and would reduce the student movement, in particular, to something that barely justifies its own existence.
