Well-off families 'should pay towards education'
The Government should re-introduce third level fees to help create a world-class education system, former EU Commissioner Peter Sutherland said today.
The barrister insisted that well-off families should be forced to contribute but that disadvantaged parents should be exempted from paying.
Third-level fees were controversially abolished by Labour Education Minister Niamh Breathnach in the mid-1990s and successive Governments have been unwilling to revisit the issue.
Mr Sutherland said today: “I think it is absolutely vital that we be at the cutting edge, particularly third level education. We are not there: we are far from it.”
Advocating more public funding for education, he added: “You are either going to have to do it through taxation or through fees, but it is a political taboo subject because it means you are attacking the very issue of free third-level education across the board.
“But there is no way that the wealthier part of society, and those who are going to benefit significantly, shouldn’t have an obligation to contribute to creating a world-class education system.”
Mr Sutherland said Irish universities did not feature prominently among the top institutions in the world “which isn’t good enough”.
There were twice as many students per teacher in Irish universities compared to Edinburgh University or Copenhagen University, he claimed.
He also said that secondary schools were not producing enough students skilled in mathematics and science subjects.
Mr Sutherland, who is chairman of the London School of Economics, also said he was proud of pioneering the Erasmus program while European Education Commissioner in the late 1980s.
The initiative has allowed two million students to avail of a one-year exchange programme at universities across Europe.
“Of all the things that I was involved in, it’s probably that thing that I’m proudest of,” he told RTÉ Radio.
