Seanad debates

Tuesday, 28 June 2022

Higher Education Authority Bill 2022: Second Stage

 

12:00 pm

Photo of Niall Ó DonnghaileNiall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Senator Craughwell should settle down. Before I begin, I share the sentiments of other colleagues. I recognise and appreciate that substantial progress has been made with regard to this Bill. It will improve the overall governance framework. As other colleagues have acknowledged, however, there is room for improvement.

Sinn Féin supports legislative reform in higher education to clarify the role of the Higher Education Authority, HEA, increase inclusion and access and ensure proper governance and accountability. I recognise that the Minister and his Department have taken on board a number of recommendations Sinn Féin put forward during pre-legislative scrutiny and on Committee Stage in the Dáil. These include issues regarding the role for the HEA in promoting an Gaeilge or the Irish language, increasing North-South co-operation, increasing the number of board members and the removal of the limit on numbers of members on academic councils as well as others.

I welcome the inclusion of student representation on the board of the HEA. I also call on the Minister to take on board the committee recommendation that trade union representation should be included on the board. Likewise, I welcome the inclusion of a specific role for the HEA in promoting cross-Border co-operation in higher education. The Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science also specifically called for a role for the HEA in promoting cross-Border student enrolment.

I note and welcome that the Bill now makes specific reference to the role of the HEA in promoting the Irish language. I assume this was an oversight in the general scheme and I am glad it is now included. That said, the role given to the HEA in promoting the Irish language is weaker in the 2022 Bill than it was in the 1971 Act it will replace and the Universities Act 1997. This should be strengthened.

Despite these changes from the general scheme and original Bill, there is still substantial room for improvement in this legislation. We will continue to work constructively with the Minister in the hope that this gets the Bill to where it needs to be. As things stand, I am not satisfied that the Minister has struck the right balance between the autonomy of institutes of higher education and governmental oversight.

We have engaged extensively with the sector over recent months and the management of every institution accepted the need for the highest standards of transparency and accountability for public finances. That is beyond question. The Minister will always have Sinn Féin's support for any policy that achieves that. However, there are many proposals in this Bill that reduce the autonomy of institutes without any clear relationship with transparency or accountability. We have yet to see or hear a convincing justification for dictating such rigid governance structures, such as the mandatory 19-member limit on governing bodies. These are unpaid positions. Every governing body has its own unique make-up and tradition. Slashing the numbers allowed on the boards seems like a decision that colleges are more than capable of making themselves provided they meet certain standards of competency and external representation. The substantial reduction in size will put more strain on the members and reduce the representation on the boards of different sectors of the institution and, indeed, the wider community. The removal of broad representation on the governing bodies would be a real loss.

It is unfair to say this legislation will move the sector to a competency-based governance model. Governing bodies are currently made up by members of the academic and non-academic staff, undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students, alumni, local authority nominees, trade union representatives, employers organisations and others.

In 2018, a Fine Gael Government passed legislation on technological universities that stipulated a 22-person governing body or 26 in certain cases. A few short years later, that has been reduced even further again without any clear explanation as to its merits. We welcome the move to increase the number of student representatives on governing authorities from two to three on Report Stage in the Dáil. Governing boards benefit and are strengthened by external member ship but again, this legislation mandates a majority of external members without clear justification or explanation.

I wonder how strong the justification could possibly be given board exemptions have been granted to Trinity College Dublin already. I have no issue with Trinity College Dublin being shown flexibility to reflect its unique governance structure. I believe different models can be equally successful provided certain safeguards are in place to ensure good governance, transparency and accountability.

Trinity College Dublin is not the only college with its own unique history and governance structure. The newly-formed Atlantic Technological University will soon make Castlebar a university town. This multi-campus technological university involves thousands of students spread across locations in Castlebar, Galway city, Killybegs, Letterfrack, Letterkenny, Mountbellew and Sligo. The geographical spread and multiple campuses mean it is very distinct from most other colleges yet it is provided with no flexibility. To anyone watching - student, parent, academic staff or otherwise - this looks unfair and elitist. The Minister could look again at the rigid, overly prescriptive governance structures and adopt a fair approach that can be applied to everyone without damaging the unique characteristics and differentiated missions of different institutions.

Another issue is that the Bill grants sole powers of review to the CEO of the HEA and empowers the CEO to make a determination on whether further action is necessary following a review. The right of higher education institutions, HEI, to appeal a decision by the HEA must be robust enough to provide HEIs with assurances that they challenge decisions.

We met representatives of most third level colleges in the State over the last 12 months, all of whom were more than happy to be held to the highest standards of accountability as recipients of public funding. That said, there was also a great deal of concern about the watering down of their institutional autonomy. Good governance and accountability can be ensured without sacrificing the autonomy of third level institutions.The greatest testament to governance of higher education is that they have managed to maintain the performance of the system over the last decade.

We have seen over the last ten years of austerity in the higher education sector that governance is not the fundamental main issue that faces the sector. Legislative reform will be of limited value unless it is accompanied by a sustainable funding model. During that time there has been piecemeal privatisation and deep commercialisation of public third level education. Today, most universities have a majority of revenue that comes from sources other than the State. Some of that is positive such as winning competitive research funding or attracting more international students. However, it has been driven out of necessity due to what the Irish Universities Association labelled as State divestment from third-level education.

The ethos and focus of these centres of education and research have been shifted towards commercial consideration. Huge amounts of time and energy are spent operating on a commercial basis, which is energy that would be better spent on education and research. Of course I do not blame the individual institutions as this has been the explicit policy of successive Governments. We see this in fees because this country has the highest undergraduate fees in the EU. In addition, fees at graduate and postgraduate levels are even higher. There are extortionate on-campus accommodation costs. Despite a student accommodation crisis there are universities that reserve half of all of their on-campus accommodation for fee-paying international students as a means of attracting a revenue stream. We now have a ratio of 23 students per academic staff member, which is far higher than the European average of 15 students.

Colleges still operate under the employment control framework that is austerity policies. The seven universities now hold around €1 billion of debt with hundreds of millions of euro already agreed to be borrowed. These loans often come with commercial conditionality. In other words, money can be borrowed for student accommodation on the condition that market rents are charged.

Sinn Féin will always engage seriously and constructively on issues of governance and higher education but this legislation will be meaningless unless we are serious about funding the sector. Sinn Féin believes that the HEA should be given a clear mandate to protect the public nature of the education system.

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