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IRELAND IS UNIQUE in Europe: we have a large, growing and highly educated population of young people. Demand for education expanded during the crisis and it looks set to grow further. There are now 210,000 students in our universities and institutes of technology (IoTs). This is set to grow by a third in the next decade as the number of secondary school students continues to expand.
We must as a society respond proactively and progressively to this thirst for knowledge and development. This will require significant investment in education across the board. Higher level education has a crucial role to play but this has to be alongside further education, apprenticeships and other post-second level opportunities.
As Chair of an Expert Group on Future Funding of Higher Education, established by the Minister for Education and Skills in 2014, my focus is on higher education.
To make a decision about future funding the Expert Group will need to first, achieve broad consensus about what we are funding and what the benefits are; and, second, we need to set out what is required from the sector if these contributions and their continued worth is to be maintained and enhanced.
The benefits of higher education
There can be little doubt that investment in higher education has been key to enabling the Irish economy to grow in recent decades. We know that graduates’ knowledge and capabilities enhance productivity. Universities and IoTs are key centres of research and knowledge generation and engines of regional and local economic development. In overall terms the State—through higher tax contributions and lower calls on welfare—benefits significantly from its investment. OECD estimate a cumulative return of 27% (for males) and 17.5% (females) over a 40 year span.
In social terms there are also strong gains associated with the higher skills, increased mobility and more civic engagement. It is also true that higher education through the participation of graduates in civic life and the contribution of our institutions, enriches Ireland’s cultural life. It is through higher education that we inform and nurture an understanding of our national identity and that of other cultures and belief systems.
We can also be proud of our graduates and what they achieve from poets to doctors; film animators to neuroscientists; historians to app designers. In personal terms graduates also gain. Alongside social and cultural benefits they earn more: an honours degree or higher is linked to earning 100% more than adults whose highest educational attainment is a Leaving Certificate or equivalent.
This brings into focus a key issue, how we as a society view individual and collective success. It is my view that the collective success of our society and economy cannot be separated from the opportunities and flourishing of the individual – and, indeed, from the environment in which we all live and work. One important implication of this view is that it contains, at its heart, a focus on both the collective good and the individual. This must be a key consideration in the decision-making around future funding of education.
Higher education faces four significant challenges
We must also recognise that the our universities and IoTs face four significant challenges. First, they are under unprecedented pressure to ensure that quality is maintained and enhanced. This is the single most important way in which higher education serves its students and the public good. We need graduates who can understand our past, engage with the present and imagine the future. This requires renewed attention not just to what graduates learn, but how they learn.
Second, the universities and IoTs need to further adapt and respond to the fundamental changes—taking place around innovation and how knowledge is generated. It is helpful to view that as happening through four spheres—university, business, government and civil society—and how they overlap and interact in a very open manner relies on a wider range of disciplines being fully engaged.
Third, we require that universities and IoTs become more responsive to the changing needs of our economy, society and public system in the medium and long-term. This means giving more attention to how employability of graduates can be improved and the role of high-quality, informed, career advice and support to students.
Fourth, access to the opportunities in universities and IoTs, of those from disadvantaged backgrounds, needs to be improved. This is despite significant progress having been achieved. It must be recognised that addressing current inequities in access will be challenging and resource-intensive to address.
Next steps
The first phase of Expert Group’s work has focused on the issues discussed here: the benefits of higher education and what is required to protect and enhance its contribution to Irish society. This has involved significant consultation with a wide range of stakeholders: academics, administrators, management; students; political stakeholders, policy makers and researchers across the public sector; and with businesses and other social groups. Over the coming months we will examine the efficiency of the universities and the IoTs, and we will identify future funding options by drawing on international experience.
As parents, students, higher education providers, taxpayers, employers, social activists and public representatives, we require a shared understanding of the role and value of higher education and some level of consensus on implementable future funding options. Communication and consultation —including further workshops with stakeholders and focus groups— will be used to develop this understanding and consensus. I hope that this will create the opportunity for all interested parties to engage fully and openly with this process.
Peter Cassells is Independent Chair of the Expert Group on Future Funding of Higher Education.
No matter the quality of our education system we do our graduates and the citizen stakeholders a disservice with the lack of local opportunities. Yes we should invest in the education of our people but we should also have a reason for them to stay in the country after graduation and not bring those skills to benefit nations that haven’t invested in them
And whose job is it to create those opportunities? Do you just want more needless public service expansion, or don’t you think that it is up to the citizens themselves, amongst them these new grads, to create the opportunities in our society?
What’s wrong with a state job? 100,000 social houses needed and there’s a trade shortage coming so put 2 and 2 together and let’s build some houses !
So our way out of recession and unemployment will be massive building projects? How did we get ourself into trouble again?
And nothing wrong with state jobs, but how do we pay for them? Needless expansion of the PS was another factor in our implosion, you seem hell bent on repeating the same mistakes again. Also, state jobs are fine, but without economic growth they are ultimately unsustainable. We need to learn to stop relying on FDI and the state to provide our employment and start providing for ourselves.
The social housing waiting list is nearly at 100,000. The property bubble had developers making private stock houses with no information on the demand. Massive difference man
But you think state intervention is the answer? The state is inherently inefficient relative to private enterprise, and this state is in debt up to its eyeballs, so how do you propose the state funds the construction of accommodation for 100k people, bearing in mind that due to their inefficiencies they will be unable to accurately forecast project costs in advance?
As I said egg head canada and Germany state intention gave great success and continues to do so. Private sector do not have the means to control workforce numbers to make sure there isn’t a future shortage or saturation of the workforce.
It’s actually Irelands boom bust private system that cause so many in the sector to emigrate
You seem to have skipped the bit about we fund this.
How did we fund irish water?
How did we fund the write downs for siteserv?
How did we fund the spire ?
Who funded the 20 mil lost from poolbeg?
Who funds the multiple ministerial pensions?
We fund it like we always do, the state will collect taxes and spend it on services
You can’t make capital investments from current income unless you have an extraordinary budget surplus. It would require either extra bond issuances or another raid on reserve funds, and as I said whatever the initial forecasts state inefficiencies would almost certainly result in further borrowing being required. I’m sure you’ve noticed, we’re skint, so further borrowing will ultimately lead to more problems.
In other news, college fees rise again for students. An extra €250 is a lot of money to a young person! €3000 per year!
Ah the education bubble, the more people with the degrees, the less value a degree holds
I’m in the last week of exams for a theoretical physics degree, and I’m scared shitless that if I get a 2.2 I’ll never get a job
I’m in the same boat..handing in my thesis next week and already stressing about what happens when I finish. Few graduates last year found employment even with a pass but any masters/phd and other graduate courses look for 2.2/2.1!
Guess you should have studied more.
Guess you should f@ck off Damien and stop being a c@nt
As the article states, graduates earn 100% more on average than people with just their leaving. More of the burden of paying for college should be placed on those people who gain the most i.e. the students themselves. Government-backed student loans are a good way to do so.
If they earn more they pay far mor taxes
They already do. 100% higher earnings also means they contribute a lot more to the state coffers through paying more tax
Why should any financial burden be put on any college student? If you Wer doing a 4 year course you’d need 12,000 saved to do the course. I don’t know if there’s enough communions and confirmations to stretch that cash.
In the uk they pay a lot and the average debt post college for these students is 45,000 euro which is a disgrace. Apprenticeships are paid the least we can do is make third level education affordable if not free.
Third level tuition can only become affordable or free if the corporate sector pay their fair share towards training graduates for future job placements. The Apples and Googles of this world could easily subsidise university education as part of their research and development budget.
Certainly Chris these very profitable companies need to invest some of their profits in the very people that make their profits
@denito. Apart from the fact that fact that students (more accurately their parents) now €3000 a year, why should those who do fas courses not pay it back as well? In fact young people on fas courses aren’t tested on their parents’ income and they get social welfare payments while doing it. Those in 3rd level pay for the privilege of studying, are tested on their parents’ means and many manage to do this whilst holding down part time jobs, working all summer, paying income tax at the same time and receiving nothing from the government. If you were wily enough, you would leave school without a leaving cert, work your way into 3rd level via plc courses and get it all paid for you by the state. So I’d imagine that by the time students graduate, they’ve probably paid enough. Anyone starting now will pay €12000 in fees plus tax, prsi, USC from part time jobs.
Excellent point. We should all be prepared to pay for what we get.
Excellent point Denito. We should be prepared to pay for what we get.
Crocpdylus, that applies to those of us who never availed of the education system.
As obviously displayed by your spelling.
Comparisons with FÁS courses or apprenticeships don’t stack up for me. FÁS courses are of short duration and are far cheaper to run than undergraduate degrees which last three years and involve huge input from extremely well qualified (and thus well-paid) people. Earnings prospects for people with FÁS qualifications are also generally not comparable with graduates.
Apprenticeships are even less comparable again as the apprentice is actually working rather than just learning.
It is true that graduates are more likely to pay higher rates of tax, but, currently, successful non-graduates on similar pay also pay those rates of tax despite the fact that the state contributed far less to their education. During the debate on college fees in the UK the unfairness of a binman’s taxes going towards the education of someone like a financial trader was raised and I think it highlights a compelling point.
Far too many graduates for the available jobs. And a lot of overqualified people doing fairly menial jobs.
Degrees are not the answer – and many are still emigrating, with and without them.
The myth that Ireland is unique in education. Do they think that the rest of the world just sits idly by while the Irish become educated, absolute nonsense.
Our apprenticeship system is very outdated at this stage. Nothing has changed since Celtic tiger when we had too many trained for the boom and now we have too little after the bust.
Half of the suicides after the crash were construction and now we’ve 100,000 social housing units that need building yet no apprentiships. I’d say the whole country puts up 10 trade apprenticeships a week which is useless for the demand needed.
Canada gauges demand for a trade looking into the future so there is never too little and never too many. Germany expanded the reach for apprenticeships into the likes of forestry and science to amazing success. Cmon ireland catch up
Kevin, the problem with apprenticeships into the traditional skills is dogged by trade unions and red tape still influencing power over management in the semi- state sphere. If companies could break the strangle hold then there might be some improvements.
What do trade unions do to prevent an apprenticeship?
It’s actually the lack of state help that has created this problem, all the private companies take on little to no apprentiships as there is no incentive from the government. In Germany and canada unions play a massive role in securing people apprenticeships and jobs along with the government researching trades to gauge future shortages or saturations.
The result is planned workforces where trades stay in the country and have valued careers where they earn enough to buy and home and rear a family. More privitisation will result in the UK model which will be low payed tradespeople
I hope that Longford/Westmeath ETB are focusing their efforts on providing relevant courses in Leisure considering the opportunity Centre Parcs are providing jobs to an area with high unemployment. Education is important but it’s the job at the end of it all that ultimately matters.
Couldn’t agree more Michelle
If standards are lowered at 2nd level, how can they be raised at 3rd level?
The Minister for Education wants to have common level for all subjects except English, Irish & Maths at JC level. This can only result in lowering the standards at LC level, which will subsequently result in a lowering of standards at 3rd level.
You cannot fix the problem from the top down!
A very long article to say nothing.
Joe, it’s long winded.
All education should be free. The same applies to water, electricity, gas, food, petrol and diesel. The tax payer should not be burdened with these charges either. The money needed to fund these human rights needs could be obtained from that place, that place where all the free money is. Kenny and his freeloading buddies are too stupid to realise this.
Do you not understand that when services are adequate we have the time and help to get set up with a career so we can earn enough to pay sufficient tax thus funding society.
1 million well paid workers pay a lot more tax than 1000 super wealthy workers yet you seem to prefer the latter. I don’t even earn enough to pay USC because I can’t secure full time work.
Peter Cassells,
Lecturers & other high earners need to look at their own positions & contributions & come down from their Ivory Towers & give more time & consideration to the students. Not so long ago a lecturer held two full time positions in two well respected third level institutions. It shows the type of management that’s applied in those institutions.
It’s not a funding issue but I’d like to see a radical idea. In order to get a degree you have to spend a year abroad. Working, studying, voluntary work, but always away from the Irish crowd. Take in the culture. Learn the language. See different ways of doing things. Then come home and enrich the place.
We’re a small island. We desperately need people who look outwards, especially amongst the future heavy hitters.
So degrees only for the wealthy who can afford this, or people living in stable families where they can just up and leave?
We call that ERASMUS Emily but as Mrs S has pointed out making it compulsory would limit third level to an elite few. We had third level limited to the elite few in the past and it went badly.
After the recent economic crashes caused by Irish “educated” classes one would wonder about the quality of Irish education. Seems more like just training rather than education.
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