Madam, - While broadly correct, your Editorial on university funding (August 8th), like the Minister for Education, misses the key point. While it is indeed true that large sums of money, including those from the Pogramme for Research in Third-level Institutions and Science Foundation Ireland, have been invested in third-level education, the bulk of this money is for research and postgraduate courses. However, the crisis is not in research funding, it in the funding of undergraduate education.
Ever since Niamh Breathnach abolished third-level fees in 1995, the money received by Irish universities per undergraduate student has steadily declined in real terms. Furthermore, the large amount of cash available for research and postgraduate education ineluctably draws more and more academic and administrative attention towards these activities. Consequently, there is little incentive for academics to invest time and effort in undergraduate teaching as it does nothing for either their careers or their cash flow. The inevitable result is, and will continue to be, a decline in the quality of undergraduate education.
PhDs are all very well, but the Government in general and the Minister for Education in particular would do well to recall that only a tiny fraction of university graduates go on to do PhDs. It is the quality of the education received by all third-level students that creates the knowledge economy, not just the achievements of the academic elite. - Yours, etc,
FRANK BANNISTER, Morehampton Terrace, Dublin 4.