MacGill Summer School:Irish universities need "significantly higher" budgets than are being offered by the Government's seven-year National Development Plan, one of the State's leading academics has said.
The provost of Trinity College, Prof John Hegarty, speaking to the Patrick MacGill Summer School last night, said "a serious disconnect" exists in the Government's policy.
Universities' budgets are €120 million lower in real terms than a decade ago and had remained static, he claimed, in real terms in the last two years, despite higher student numbers.
Acknowledging that "phenomenal" State investment is available to third-level institutions for research, he said this money does not cover the institutions' other costs.
"There is a scale of investment required which is significantly beyond the scope of what has been envisaged in the recently launched National Development Plan," he said.
"There is a serious risk that even as research funding has increased, the underlying fabric of the universities may not be able to sustain it. This a serious disconnect in overall funding policy," he warned.
"Ironically, the investment in the core operation of teaching and learning and in the infrastructural fabric of the universities has been going in the opposite direction.
"Taken in real terms, the budget for Irish universities has been cut for several years in a row and has remained static over the last two years," he told the summer school.
Rejecting Prof Hegarty's funding figures, Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin said extra State money is available to the third level sector, "but not so that they continue to do things as they did in the past".
The Government's Strategic Innovation offers over €500 million to third level colleges undergoing major changes during the lifetime of the NDP, but they have to compete for this money with their peers.
Raising serious questions over the Government's existing funding rules for third-level institutions, Prof Hegarty said the issue cannot be addressed "in a piecemeal way.
"Research, teaching and learning, knowledge transfer, and the interface of society, cannot be pursued in isolation from one another.
"Neither can the different types of institution be considered under separate policies," he said.
Pointing out that only one Irish university (TCD) appears among the world's best 200 universities, Prof Hegarty clearly favoured the reintroduction of college fees that were abolished in the mid-1990s.
The Government should first decide what sums were needed to make all of them internationally competitive, and then decide how much it was prepared to pay and "how much should be contributed by those with most to gain - the students.
"I do not see any inclination on the part of Government to meet this overall need through public funding alone. If this is the case, the clear issue to be addressed is the private contribution, whether it is termed 'fees', or not," he said.
State incentives could also be used to encourage the new Irish wealthy to make philanthropic donations to universities, "though they will only give to excellence", be it at home, or abroad. "Nor do philanthropists see it as their role to substitute for public funding in the situation where the State has reserved to itself the right to control the funding of universities," said Prof Hegarty.
Ms Hanafin, in her address to the summer school last night, said the State's extra education spending over the next seven years must produce better results for pupils.
Laying down a marker for teachers, she said: "Reducing class sizes and hiring 4,000 extra primary teachers means that at the end of the day children will have to leave literate and numerate." Teachers enjoying smaller class sizes would have to be able to meet the needs of very clever children, and those suffering difficulties.
"In the past when there were large classes they could only teach to the middle and teach the average. There will be an expectation now that they will challenge the brighter one while at the same time supporting the weaker one," she told the summer school.
Furthermore, teachers will have to become more flexible, embracing the €250 million investment in information technology, and agreeing to changes in teaching styles.
