An insider's guide to education

•The forthcoming spending Estimates should provide more good news for the education sector as pre-election fervour could lead to a substantial increase in spending

Mary Hanafin has done very well in the Estimates process during her tenure - but those awkward OECD figures showing education spending here running well behind most other states shows there is still much to do.

The amount of money for school buildings is already known as the department is working through a rolling, five-year €3 billion kitty.

One item of interest will be the allocation to support the new disciplinary measures. These will see "sin bins" in some 50 schools. The allocation for this area will tell us the real priority given to discipline.

•Is it our imagination or has Waterford's demand for university status moved up a notch or two in the past month? Nothing to do with the forthcoming election of course, but let's just say some key figures are making positive noises. It probably won't come to anything, but these days you never know.

One institution that seems very upset about all of this is the Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) which rolls out apocalyptic warnings at the very mention of Waterford University. Relax, CIT folk. A university in Waterford? It will never happen. Will it?

•Competition between the universities for that diminishing pool of students has given a new priority to marketing and promotion. Industry figures reckon the college spent an estimated €500,000 on marketing the new modularised first-year Horizons programme. And it worked. Applications to UCD from Leaving Certs soared by some 10 per cent.

But how many colleges can afford that level of expenditure?

•"We need university leaders who will not shirk from a challenge," declared Mary Hanafin in her address at a UCD dinner last Friday.

It was a reminder that the Government is firmly on the side of Hugh Brady, Gerry Wrixon and others in the debate on third-level reform.

Speaking of UCD, there is a growing belief that Belfield boss Hugh Brady (below) is out of the woods, after a bruising period of internal and external disputes. Increasingly, key figures are talking about the way Brady has revitalised the one-time sleeping giant of Irish education. Now that's a refreshing change.

Got any education gossip? E-mail us at teacherspet@irish-times.ie