Is anyone talking to Ajai Chopra of the IMF about the key importance of education for the future of this country?

About €235 million will be cut from the education budget next year. Cuts on a broadly similar scale can be expected in 2012, 2013 and 2014 as the four-year economic plan is rolled out.

All of this will place intolerable pressure on a chronically underfunded education system, already creaking at the edges.

School capitation and supports will be scaled back, third-level funding will be cut by up to five per cent for each of the next four years, a range of supports for special needs and other deserving students will be scaled back.

Is there a better way ?

Would it not make much more sense to cut back on the relatively good pay and conditions in the education sector which absorb over 75 per cent of total spending? The Croke Park Agreement on public service reform rules out any pay cuts – but this is the time for courage from the teacher unions from primary, second and third-level. Our educators are among the best paid in the world; many can afford to take some pain.

How good it would be to hear someone – anyone – from these unions declare they are ready to make a small sacrifice for the overall good of the education sector and for our nation’s children.

Now, that would be a genuine act of patriotism of a kind that would make the men of 1916 proud.

* The annual Irish Times Feeder School Listpublished last week drew a phenomenal response from readers, hungry for more information on schools.

Now in its seventh year, the list has become part of the education landscape. From what we hear, there was scarcely a staff room in the country last Wednesday where the list was not the main talking point. The irony , of course, is that The Irish Times list is published without any official support from the Department of Education or the third-level colleges.

Isn’t it about time we ended all this nonsense and published official school league tables?

And isn’t it about time the appalling low levels of third-level progression in some poorer areas – highlighted this year – drew a robust response from policymakers?

* The chairman of the National Strategy for Higher Education, Colin Hunt (above), is being tipped as the next chair of the Higher Education Authority (HEA).

Hunt, a former economic advisor to Brian Cowen, has gained only mixed reviews for his work on the national strategy.

And his appointment to the HEA would not be universally welcomed. Many in the education sector would like to see Peter Sutherland take the position. Sutherland, the former EU commissioner, is eminently qualified for the role. But those old Fine Gael connections still seem to rule him out of the picture.