Implementation of the OECD's recommended reforms in higher education and an end to stop-go funding are now required, writes Dr Hugh Brady
The report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on the future of higher education is extremely welcome and has placed us at a crossroads. The direction we now take will influence profoundly the future of our country.
The analysis has been done. It is now time for action.
Everyone accepts that the well-being of our education system is intrinsically linked with our well-being as a nation. Moreover, there is no premium for any of us in pitting one part of our education system against another; robbing Peadar níos sine to pay Peadar níos óige or vice-versa is not the way forward.
Education is a continuum from primary through secondary, to third level and beyond. If any link in the chain is weakened, the engine driving the development of Irish society will grind to a halt.
There is little comfort then to be drawn from recent surveys which place Irish universities in poor light when compared with our international competitors. Like any measure applied uniformly to the range of global contexts, they are inescapably blunt and crude. If a set of FIFA rankings were to appear which showed the Irish football team outside, say, the top 50, we might all, in our own way, be concerned. And there would be minimal comfort to be derived from the fact of near neighbours being slightly inferior in ranking.
Let's face facts: the best Irish students, the lifeblood of Irish higher education and best hope for our future, are already being targeted by overseas universities. These institutions, better resourced as they invariably are, frequently make our young people the proverbial offer they can't refuse.
This is not an argument based on nationalism. I fully endorse the OECD recommendations on the desirability of attracting significantly more international students to Irish universities. It is, rather, a clinical statement that if we are seen to offer an inferior product, we will not be able to retain the best Irish young people and to attract the brightest and best from abroad. Think globally, act locally is a slogan which needs to find a new resonance in Irish higher education if we are not to become an international backwater.
The OECD report recommends an integrated and far-reaching package of reforms for both the stakeholder Government Departments and third-level institutions. It must be embraced if Ireland is to compete and win on the international stage. Irish university academics compare favourably with any sector of our society in their willingness to embrace change and reform.
Although there will always be healthy disagreements about means, I continue to be struck by how willing colleagues are to engage with issues such as access, curriculum reform, internationalisation, governance and the fostering of a strong research culture. The OECD analysis, however, is sobering. Although our combined efforts may have promoted us rapidly from the lower divisions, we are still far from the top of the premiership.
No matter how rapidly and comprehensively the OECD reform package is embraced, it will all be in vain unless funding is addressed. No matter how well a club is managed, it cannot compete without the money to buy and sustain a competitive squad. You can't compete longterm if you don't know how much you have to spend from one year to the next.
Increased spending on higher education is a necessary investment in all our futures. Political courage and leadership can only take us so far. If we truly believe in the critical role of knowledge and innovation, then investment in education today is as critical to Ireland's future economic success as low corporation tax was to our current economic success. It is a necessity - not a luxury.
When I spoke above about our being at a crossroads, I could have said that one road would take us in the direction of the Irish agri-food industry - to take an example of a sector that has achieved international success - the other would take us in the direction of the Irish clothing industry.
There will be no viable Irish industrial sector in the future and our competitive knowledge economy will fail if we do not make the necessary investment in the foundations of knowledge, the seedbeds of innovative ideas which are the young minds of today. And without this investment, we will not have the tax revenues to fund the schools, hospitals, roads and services in the Ireland of tomorrow.
Thirty years ago an earlier OECD report chartered a course for the future of Irish education. The current Minister for Education has been vindicated in his decision to commission this new report. But now is the time for action. And this action must be about ending the false choice between primary and higher levels of education; funding at all levels must be increased as required.
Moreover, the OECD report tells us, if we need telling, that the most damaging option for Ireland's economy and society is to persist with the stop-go approach to educational funding. Institutions of higher education are committed to necessary reforms and increased quality of service. The onus is now on all of us with an interest in Ireland's development as an economy and a society to take the necessary action.
Dr Hugh Brady is president of University College Dublin