Funding third-level education: A hard decision dodged again
For the last two years, most Irish politicians have, metaphorically at least, bitten their lip while their British counterparts struggled to find a unified position on Brexit. Recognising that their best contribution to the debacle may be silence most said little or nothing about the uncertainty generated by indecision. Yet there is an issue on which Irish politicians have come to define by indecision — the role college fees might play in funding third-level education.
Fianna Fáil, have helpfully this weekend raised this issue in the forlorn hope that it, a kind of political root-canal treatment, might be dealt with before they are returned to power whenever that might be. They are right though, the time for a decision is long passed.
The Cassells report concluded in 2015 that an extra €600m a year is needed immediately to sustain the sector and that that figure will rise over coming years. Chair of the Oireachtas Education Committee Fiona O’Loughlin has accused Government not implementing the report and putting off a decision until after the next election.
Friday’s climate change marches around the world focused on government inaction on that particular issue but it is hard not to think that a less-affable genie has escaped the bottle — and not before time.
This issue is also pressing for those who marched and it is unlikely that long-fingering it one more time will be accepted, especially as under-funded institutions struggle to keep up with their internationals peers.
