An insider’s guide to education
** “What part of ‘no’ does UCD not understand?”
This question from the chief executive of the Higher Education Authority (HEA), Tom Boland, is now the talk of the entire education sector. It was delivered at Thursday’s Dáil Public Accounts Committee meeting when Boland was pressed on why the HEA had not put more pressure on UCD to stop those unauthorised payments to senior staff.
Not surprisingly, relations between the HEA and some of our universities are a little tense after this bruising encounter.
Accused of light regulation of our universities, the HEA clearly decided that attack was the best form of defence, switching the focus back to the universities. The universities might have been better advised to adopt a similarly combative approach.
UCD president Hugh Brady, who took so much flak, has achieved minor miracles at UCD – the one-time "sleeping giant'' is now among the Times Higher EducationTop 100 universities. Brady has clearly been doing this State some service, but this key point was somehow drowned out in the tense exchanges between the committee and the presidents.
So who emerged with credit from last Thursday’s proceedings?
Labour’s Róisín Shortall was the undoubted star performer with her close, intense questioning of the universities. Shorthall sounded like a minister for education-in-waiting.
University of Limerick president Don Barry also did well as he patiently explained the “unique, exceptional and very challenging circumstances” that resulted in three people being paid the rate for president there at the same time.
** Speaking of academic pay rates, the following is the text of a letter we received from a senior figure in one of the Institutes of Technology (IOTs).
“In the IoTs, there is no requirement on teaching staff to hold a PhD-level qualifications to be hired, which is as it should be. We have people with trade certificates and basic degrees earning huge amounts of money. There is no expectation on these people to produce any research or do anything other than be present for their basic teaching hours. Once the examinations are over in the middle of May, they are not seen again on campus until the 1st of September, apart from dealing with the exams process, correcting scripts etc, for which they are paid additional, extraordinary sums of money.
“This also applies to Heads of Departments and Schools, probably averaging almost €100,000 pa – these people are here for little more than six months of the year. In short, the rates of academic pay in the IoTs, for a hugely underqualified and underperforming workforce, is nothing short of a national disgrace.”
The academic in question wants to maintain his anonymity. He writes: “I have to work with these people every day, so I would be committing career suicide by going public. I’ve seen too many people who spoke out get isolated over the years. It’s just not worth it.”
Expect this issue to receive considerably more coverage in the coming weeks.
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