Former Chief Executive of the Royal College of Surgeons, Michael Horgan, has been appointed as the new chair of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) by Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton.
Horgan, who led the Royal College of Surgeons for five years before retiring in 2009, will take over from John Hennessy. His appointment comes as the funding of higher education becomes a central issue for the government following the publication of the report by the government’s higher education funding working group in July.
The report, commonly known as the Cassells report, has now been passed onto the Oireachtas Education and Skills Committee, who will be responsible for choosing one of the three proposed options for the funding of higher education put forward by the working group.
The cross-party committee is chaired by Fianna Fáil’s Fiona O’Loughlin, and contains TDs from all major parties. Fianna Fáil, whose education spokesperson, Thomas Byrne, is also on the committee, has not ruled out supporting an income-contingent loan scheme, but has described the costs of such a scheme as “uncertain”.
Both Labour, the Green Party and Sinn Féin have also made clear that they support greater public funding in higher education.
The three options put forward by the much-delayed report were the abolition of the student contribution and the creation of a predominantly state-funded system, the continuation of the current student contribution charge coupled with increased state investment, and the introduction of an income-contingent loan system.
One member of the funding working group has already called on the committee to make a choice from the options presented. There is to be no “diluting” of the recommendations to support a compromise between the parties.
Bruton has still not made public his position on how higher education should be funded, leaving Fine Gael as the only party not to commit to a particular model. However, speculation at the time of his appointment and afterwards has suggested that Bruton may not support a publicly-funded higher education system. Horgan, as Chair of the HEA for the next five years, will play a critical role in the implementation of the new funding model chosen by the Education and Skills Committee.
This is not the first state body Horgan has chaired. In late 2010 he was appointed Chair of the Health and Safety Authority (HSA). His current term as chair, following his 2013 reappointment, is due to end in December. During this time Horgan would have worked closely with Bruton, who was then Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Indeed, in 2013 it was Bruton who had responsibility for appointing five new members of the HSA board.
It has not yet been confirmed whether Horgan will step down as chair.
Alongside Horgan a number of other appointments to the HEA were also made, including the appointment of the Head of Education, Social and Innovation Policy at the business and employer group Ibec, as well as Judith Eaton, the President of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, an advocacy group based in the US.
Bruton has also appointed Darina Kneafsey, who founded the business consultancy firm Quilly Ltd, to the HEA board, as well as Pól Ó’Móráin, a member of the Irish Export Trade Council.
University College Dublin’s (UCD) Prof Orla Feely, also the university’s Vice President for Research, Innovation and Impact, will also sit on the board, as well as Sinéad O’Flanagan, a senior lecturer in management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Additionally, Head of Teaching and Learning at Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LYIT), Dr Lynn Ramsey has also been appointed. The Head of the School of Lifelong Learning and Education in Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), Dr John Wall and the Head of Learning Development at Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT)’s College of Business, Dr Sharon Feeney, have also been appointed.
Following the publication of the Cassells report, Bruton called for the introduction of “new performance-based funding mechanisms and new targets for improved outcomes for the users and funders of the service”.
These targets include the increase in participation in higher education by disadvantaged socio-economic groups by over 7 percentage points, a 25 per cent increase in the number of entrants studying on a flexible – part-time or online – basis, which Horgan and the rest of the committee will have to work with the Minister and higher education institutions to achieve.
Chief Executive of the HEA, Tom Boland, is also set to retire at the end of July after leading the HEA for 13 years. In a press statement, acting Chair of the HEA, Dr Stephen Kinsella, praised the “positive” role Boland played during that period in higher education, and referenced the “major changes” he had overseen in the HEA. Boland will be replaced by Dr Anne Looney, who will take over as interim chief executive.
With a background in civil engineering, as well as a degree in law, Boland was appointed chair of the HEA in 2004. As chair, Boland oversaw the publication of a report into gender inequality in Irish higher education, following the decision of the Equality Tribunal in November 2014, when they found that National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG) botanist Dr Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington had been discriminated against when turned down for a promotion in 2009. The report, published in June, was heavily critical of the gender imbalance in Irish higher education.
During his tenure, the issue of the independence of higher education institutions in Ireland became a major focus, with the government and HEA criticised by academics for attempting to increase their control of universities and colleges. In April 2015, at a forum held in Trinity on higher education, Boland called for a change from “relatively isolated, standalone institutions to a more coherent system of institutions, each identifying and operating to their strengths”.
Last December, speaking at a discussion on higher education funding at the Royal Irish Academy, Boland described the current funding situation as “managed decline”. During his time in charge of the HEA, the majority of Irish institutions experienced a sharp decline both in funding and in their positions in international rankings.
Correction: 00:26, July 28th 2016
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Michael Horgan will be replacing Tom Boland as chair of the HEA. In fact, Tom Boland is Chief Executive of the HEA, and will retire at the end of July. Horgan will be replacing current Chair, John Hennessy.
