Big Business set to dictate our Education

national | anti-capitalism | other press

Tuesday April 26, 2005 15:17

by Resist

From the Irish Times

Third-level colleges to compete for extra funding

The Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, said yesterday a return to college fees, proposed by the OECD last year, was off the agenda and instead the Government would introduce a new multi-million euro fund for higher education to be earned by the colleges.

Under the new "pro-business agenda" for higher education, colleges will be rewarded for cost-cutting and other changes by receiving additional income over and above the regular grants.

The precise amount to be made available by the Government will not be decided until the Estimates later this year. But senior university figures last night said a fund of over €70 million annually would be required.

In a major policy statement on third level yesterday, Ms Hanafin said the return of tuition fees for undergraduate students was "off the agenda". The return of fees was the main recommendation of last year's landmark OECD review of the third-level sector in the Republic.

The OECD said a quantum leap in funding was necessary to push the State's third-level sector into the top international league.

While refusing to back fees, the Government hopes the new fund will modernise the sector, while providing much-needed additional funding. Under the plan, the universities and the institutes of technology will from next year compete for allocations from the reform fund. The Higher Education Authority will establish detailed criteria for awards under the fund.

Colleges will be asked to submit their plans and they will be "rewarded" for various changes including:

Internal restructuring and streamlining efforts.

Teaching and learning reforms.

Promoting wider access for lower socio-economic groups.

Providing improved management information systems.

Providing improved management performance systems.

Demonstrating that real and clear benefits will derive from the proposals.

The new reform or Strategic Innovation Fund could also reward colleges which meet overall economic needs by providing more graduates in disciplines such as science and technology. By some estimates, the Republic will need over 300,000 skilled graduates in the period to 2010.

The establishment of the reform fund comes at a time when several university presidents are attempting to impose radical reform. UCD has recently backed proposals which will see the number of academic departments and faculties cut by some 50 per cent, as part of a streamlining process. Similar reform plans are under way at UCC and Trinity, where they have met stiff resistance from staff.

The new fund was welcomed by both Dr Hugh Brady, president of UCD, and the provost of TCD, Dr John Hegarty. Dr Brady stressed, however, that the fund would need to invest hundreds of millions in order to bring teaching and learning in Irish universities to top international standards. The universities hope that the new fund will be like the competitive process for research funding which has delivered over €700 million to higher education over the past decade.

The Government's support for the OECD approach is certain to face criticism from some academics. Some fear that arts and humanities could lose out, if colleges believe the new reform fund favours science and technology.

Last night, Ms Hanafin said the new fund would promote and encourage radical reform in the third-level sector. The amount of funding available would, she said, be dictated by the quality and quantity of the proposals coming from the colleges themselves.

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Comments (5 of 5)

Sigh

by Mithras - hi

Tue Apr 26, 2005 18:16

Typical FF bullshit

Internal restructuring and streamlining efforts

by Not a technician

Tue Apr 26, 2005 18:30

Yeah the technicians won't like to hear that.

3rd Level Education Policy: In other words, different tactics

by Terry

Tue Apr 26, 2005 19:41

What this statement really means, is that the heat has been too much on fees and they are going to hold off on that and try bring in fees by a different set of tactics.

The idea is that they will basically starve the colleges of funds unless they embrace privatisation methods and will gladly destroy them in order to show 'public' third level education doesn't work and thefore private ones are better -thus back to fees.

It's similar to the tactic they have been using with Dublin Bus. They wanted to sell off the most profitable 25%, allow the rest to run into the ground and then hoped when the chaos unfolded, the public would demand it be privatised.

Indeed, you could argue this is what is has been happening with the health service off the last 20 years. And as the number of people with private health insurance (VHI, Bupa) steadily climbs the system effectively becomes a privatised health service.

It's quite simply the neo-liberal agenda.

More background to the EU, GATS, Globalisation and the Neo-Liberal agenda at links below.

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/wsm/eu.html

He who Controls The Past Controls The Future

by The Devil and George Warmonger Bush - The World According to George W. Bush

Wed Apr 27, 2005 08:22

666 War Lies Ln., Cramford, TX Bush Ranch

666-War-Tale Ext. Bush

The Bushites attack you by poisoning your own Children with their version of History. Ronald Reagan, Dick Cheney, George Bush Sr., and His Assholiness George Warmonger Bush are Heroes in the History Books of Big Business, but Mass Murderers in reality. The War on Terror is a Holy Crusade in the History Books, but a Crime Against Humanity in reality. While Web Blogs attempt to tell the truth, the Corporate Mass Media Fabricates it. Then the History Books Follow their Lead, by teaching it in Schools. And your Children grow up believing many of these Fabricated Lies.

thanks to tippy toppy telly and gaming toys

by ribbid ribbid moo moo woof woof - "creation will defend itself"

Wed Apr 27, 2005 13:49

hogworts

We all are trained as attorneys at law (US style) policemen, A&E doctors, soldiers and know how to fight aliens in a tight corner or indeed exorcise a demon.

However what passes for education at most levels in the affluent states of Europe, is not what generations of thinkers and pedagogues fought against often incredible odds to achieve.

Neither Montessori nor Steiner, neither Rousseau nor Loyola would be pleased with the university system which has opened up in the last fifty years education to those who could afford it, and now most lately thinks to offer places "in the name of opportunity" to those of less well off backgrounds.

This is the yoke of mediocrity and of meritocracy that we have laboured under, which has filled the corporations with executives who have perverted their intelligence to further profit - and profit alone.

The community to which you belong, is not the guilded world of company cars, company conferences of flattery and "leadership", mortgages and competition. It is the world of the air you breathe, the water you drink, the street where you walk.

Your family are not the fellow employees, or narrowly educated and formed specialists who have taken the best creative and scientific product of human millenial genius and reduced them absurdly to kilometres on kilometres of thesis and essays which can not see the wood for the trees.

Your family are your brothers and sisters in humanity. Whom for the most part, have no education beyond primary, have no vaccines, no access to clean water, no place in the avaricious competition which passes for economic progress, and not enough food to concentrate for the day.

You do not need over 60 million qualified lawyers,
You do not need another essay or symposium on James Joyce or another interpretation of what he might have thought he wanted you to think he meant.
You do not need space shuttles or moon bases.

You need to answer very simple questions-
Why have the bee mites gone super aggressive?
Why are toads exploding?
Why do the majority of good boys and girls not get past first grade and the children of the wicked do?
You have as young people simple choices, enter the university educational system, and learn how to "fit in" to this system, and be offered a job in the corporative world, or-
serve your community, rediscover your "patria" but not on narrow nationalist or ethnic or creed grounds. One choice will bring you a car, a mortgage, a pension, and flu and death.
The other will bring you sustainability.

your choice.
where do you want to go today?

the power of christ compels you.
= Kickbox!
reload!
pick up that first aid.
I Object your honour!
we need Oxygen in here now, he's going into arrest!
You have the right to remain silent.
Take that you bitch.
Big Brother today, I don't feel so good.
I want to go the next level.

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Big Business set to dictate our Education

Comments (5 of 5)