Only the worst begrudger could deny Mary Hanafin's success in the Estimates last Thursday when she managed to secure an extra 9 per cent for day-to-day spending on education. If proof were needed, it came in the INTO's very muted response .
The new Minister has, correctly, identified the INTO as the most powerful lobby in education - and she is determined to deliver for the primary sector. Expect some very good news on school buildings, disadvantage and special needs over the coming months.
The Estimates did unleash a storm of protest from the universities and the institutes of technology. At this stage, university presidents are giving Hanafin the benefit of the doubt. They take the benign view that the Minister did her best to move Brian Cowen on third-level funding. But the strong words from the Conference of Heads of Irish Universities (CHIU) and from UCD boss Hugh Brady underline how the sector wants to see Hanafin deliver on the OECD recommendations.
The political calculation may be that the punters are more animated about rotten primary schools than cutbacks in the universities. But the new Minister will not want to alienate the university heads. As Noel Dempsey found to his cost, they can be a formidable enemy - with friends in all the right places.
He won't say it publicly, of course, but UCD boss Hugh Brady must be pleased with the conclusions of the expert report he commissioned on the college. The report said that UCD was underperforming and needed to raise its game.
Predictably, there is uproar in the Belfield canteen among academics, but when the fuss dies down the report should help "soften up" UCD for the reform process which Brady will unveil next month. Expect more cutbacks as departments are streamlined and/or merged.
A small group of mature students got something of a surprise recently when they enrolled for Junior Cert French. They discovered they had to pay an exam fee - last year it was €53 - even though they were taking only one subject. Students taking the whole Junior Cert exam paid €82 last year.
Interesting to see Mary Hanafin sharing the Estimates spotlight with her junior, Síle De Valera at last Thursday's press conference. The junior minister was mostly out of the picture during the Dempsey era.
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