The new Provost of Trinity College Dublin, Dr Patrick Prendergast, has called on the Government to release some of the constraints on higher education in Ireland to allow the sector to compete on the world stage and create jobs.
In his inaugural address today, he warned that Trinity could not compete for Ireland on the world stage with "our hands tied behind our backs."
"If Government can regulate in terms of outputs - and leave universities to deploy resources to best effect for the education of our students - then universities can prosper as employers, and act as an inward focus for students to come from abroad," he said.
"If this could happen, Irish universities delivering quality education to large numbers of students could be big creators of jobs. But in this country, we have twisted ourselves into a position where we are forcing universities to shed jobs rather than create them. It doesn't make sense."
The provost said Ireland need to re-examine the way it funded higher education.
"At the moment payment to universities is based on the division of a fixed pot. The amount each university gets depends on how many students all the other universities enrol. There is no direct measure of quality, or indeed assessment of the degree of subvention needed for a particular course. It's only about numbers. So much so, that one commentator talks about 'headage' payments.
"Herding in students without knowing, or even caring, whether we have enough resources- is that really what we want? It's not even what we want for our sheep. If we want to think in terms of quality, not quantity, that should be reflected in the way we fund.''
Dr Prendergast, who supports the return of college fees for those who can afford them said society has "no right to mortgage future generations by dodging this issue"
He also said those who want a quality education should allowed to pay for it if they can afford to do so. "The reality is, that if the best students can't get a top quality higher education here, they will go abroad for it - and they would be right to do so," he said.
"We need to release some of the constraints acting on higher education. To compete globally, I need to have flexibility and decision-making powers - the same flexibility that other presidents of leading universities can count on particularly with regard to hiring and promotions. At the moment I need to get permission for what I do.''
He pointed out how the college was still ranked among the top colleges worldwide t 65th in the world.
"No other Irish institution, public sector or private sector, ranks anywhere near as high in its global category. To put the figure in context, we have just one Irish-owned company in the Fortune 500, which is currently 428th."
Describing Trinity as a great Irish success story he warned: "We can't rely for long on past reputation in such a fast-changing world, where, for instance, Nanyang Technological University (or NTU) in Singapore, shot up the ranks to overtake us this year - although it was only founded twenty years ago. I am afraid that some high tech employers have already begun to question the quality of our graduates."
Dr Prendergast said he appreciated there was a financial crisis in this country. "But I do feel that there may be a resistance to the idea of spending money on universities which goes deeper than the immediate crisis.''
He pointed out how the total spend on a student in an Irish university is still only at the OECD average, and well below the EU average.
"If we take on more students we need to take on more staff and have more resources available to run the courses. Unfortunately the opposite has happened. Funding per student has been reduced year on year for the last three years," he said. "And what has been the result? An unfortunate slipping down the global ranks for Ireland's top universities. A few weeks ago Trinity got its new ranking: 65th in the world. We have fallen 22 places since our height. The metrics are unequivocal: we do not now employ enough academic staff, by international standards, for the number of students we have.''
