FERDINAND VON PRONDZYNSKI
LEFTFIELD: If the Government insists that the civil service micro-manages our colleges, it will destroy third level education
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It cannot be said loudly enough. This scheme is mad. It is senseless and destructive. It harms Ireland’s recovery. And it must be reversed as a matter of absolute priority.
On 26 March 2009, the Minister for Finance confirmed that the Government had decided to implement a moratorium on public service recruitment, precluding recruitment, promotion, renewal of fixed-term contracts, or payment of an allowance for the performance of duties at a higher grade. The standard letter sent to the various government departments emphasised that exceptions to this principle would arise only in very limited circumstances and would require the prior sanction of the Minister for Finance. There were additional rules for Education and Health, and these were supplemented for the third level sector by a controversial Employment Control Framework. That framework has now run its course, but news has seeped out over the course of the weekend that, in one of his last acts before leaving office, Brian Lenihan, the outgoing Minister for Finance, last week sanctioned a successor Employment Control Framework. It has been been much derided on Twitter at #ecf11, and it has drawn a chorus of detailed criticism from Des Fitzgerald, Ferdinand von Prondzynski, Colm Kearney, Paul Walsh, Dermot Frost, and Donncha O’Connell. For a bunch of academics, the unanimity is extraordinary. All are agreed that this new Framework is a thoroughly bad idea.…
Fewer universities with one big brand leader known as the University of Ireland is in the wider national interest
The Irish Times – Fri, Feb 25, 2011
SEÁN FLYNN
EDUCATION: IN THE COURSE of discussions on the University College Dublin-Trinity research alliance two years ago, the Taoiseach Brian Cowen and his advisers had a Very Big Idea. The secret discussions with the two universities had focused on how to build a world-class research capacity in our leading higher education colleges. But some of the Cowen team wanted to go further.
The logical step, they argued, was for a full merger of UCD and Trinity, pooling the best of both in a reshaped institution that would glide onto any list of the best universities in the world.
This is a terrible idea. It presupposes that it is worthwhile chasing international rankings. This quest is ephemeral at best. But even if it is worthwhile, Cowen’s strategy assumes that scrapping a very strong brand (TCD) and an emerging brand (UCD) and replacing them with an entirely new one is the way to do it. And that cannot be right.…
After Andrew Croskery comes Tony Chinedu Wogu. According to the Daily Telegraph and The Register, Tony Chinedu Wogu has failed in his bid to sue the University of Bradford for £5m compensation, alleging that a 2:2 and not a First in Computing Science was the result of discrimination and breach of contract. Judge Andrew Collender QC struck out his case, saying academics had a much better understanding of the quality of a student’s work than lawyers did. As Treacy J had done in Croskery, Collender QC pointed out that Mr Wogu could seek judicial review of the university’s decision to award him a 2:2, but only after he had exhausted his internal appeals. Moreover, he reasserted the principle of judicial deference to matters of purely academic judgment (as opposed to breaches of procedure):
…This court has the most limited of powers to interfere in such a decision. This court has not the power or expertise to simply examine or to determine the proper degree grade to which the claimant would have been entitled from the University of Bradford. That is a decision particularly within the scope of an academic institution. It would not be for this court to apply its judgment as to the degree level reached and substitute that for the university’s … and the defendants’ application to strike out is successful.
The rather arcane principles of academic tenure and academic freedom, which have long featured on this blog, have recently moved close to the centre of industrial relations debate and political discussion. The National Strategy for Higher Education in Ireland (the Hunt Report) and the Public Service Agreement 2010-2014 (the Croke Park Agreement) seem to imperil both concepts. The current conception of academic tenure is threatened by proposals to make significant changes to academic employment conditions, and the current conception of academic freedom is undermined by recommendations that fundamental academic choices should be determined not by academics or institutions but at national level. It is unsurprising, therefore, that a recent meeting of Irish academics protested against the implementation of the Croke Park agreement in third-level institutions, and called for the defence of tenure and academic freedom.
Some colleges and universities have been strong in their defence of these concepts. For example, I have already discussed the provisions of Trinity’s 2010 Statutes protecting tenure and academic freedom. Moreover, the Trinity’s Council and Board have recently approved a detailed and progressive Policy on Academic Freedom. I have also discussed similar statutory provisions in other Irish universities. To that, I can now add the provisions of NUI Maynooth‘s statutes relating to tenure.…
Lecturers protest over Croke Park deal
JOANNE HUNT
MORE THAN 200 university and institute of technology lecturers met in Dublin on Saturday to protest against the implementation of the Croke Park agreement in third-level institutions.
The group, which met in the Gresham Hotel, is seeking to protect the right of academics to permanency and tenure until retirement age. They said this “bedrock on which academic freedom rests” was under threat.
The Croke Park deal, along with the Hunt report on higher education, proposes longer working hours and shorter holidays, tighter management control and performance-related pay.
They also open up the possibility that academics deemed to be substandard by management could be sacked.
UCD MADE unauthorised payments of approximately €6 million to staff that will have to be refunded to the exchequer, the chief executive of the Higher Education Authority has said.
As I said yesterday, the payments may have been unauthorised, but it does not necessarily follow that they will have to be refunded.
UCD IS refusing to refund €1.6 million paid in “unlawful” allowances to senior academic staff despite pressure from the Department of Education, the Department of Finance and the Higher Education Authority (HEA).
It is understood UCD president Dr Hugh Brady has warned the HEA that any attempt to impose a financial sanction on the university may be “illegal, inappropriate and discriminatory”.
A major standoff has now developed between the two sides, despite months of negotiations between the HEA and UCD vice-president Dr Philip Nolan on the issue.
The issue is not straightforward. For example, Prof Steve Hedley (UCC) has argued:
The issue of overpayments to university staff has yet to be resolved. The truth is that neither side is on very firm ground, and if ever the matter were to be litigated, it would almost certainly be necessary to look at each alleged over-payment separately. … The key provision is the Universities Act, 1997, s 25(4), which reads in part:
… there shall be paid by a university to the employees of that university, such remuneration, fees, allowances and expenses as may be approved from time to time by the Minister [for Education and Skills] with the consent of the Minister for Finance.
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