The creation of a dedicated Department for Higher Education earlier this year was met with much fanfare by those in the sector who had been advocating for such a move for years. The existence of the dedicated department has already proven useful, with the Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris already providing increased third-level spaces to deal with the inflated leaving certificate grades and promising to prioritise hot-topic issues such as on-campus sexual assault.
It was reasonable, then, that stakeholders expected that the benefits of a department would extend to the budget, an area where third-level has been consistently neglected in the past number of years. Policy and promises are all well and good, but mean nothing without the injection of funds to a starved sector.
In this regard, this week’s budget was disappointing. Instead of a budget that supported a plan to get third-level institutions back on their feet after years of neglect and the increased hardship caused by the coronavirus, the government provided a lacklustre offering to college.
The budget allocation for third-level highlighted a lack of understanding about the current challenges faced by the sector. Instead of coming up with a plan to fix the sector in the long run, higher education institutions got a hodgepodge of financial gifts – with little substance.
The €50 million fund to assist third-level students experiencing financial hardship as a result of the pandemic was a particularly bewildering move. With no plans on how to distribute the money and no clarification regarding the rationale behind the decision, the move was a confusing one that widely failed to whip up support among students that the government was surely expecting.
Furthermore, the choice to distribute these funds among third-level students, rather than providing needs-based support or investing in services that benefit all students – such as increased counselling supports – made the decision appear poorly executed and badly considered.
Sectors can’t survive on lip-service alone, and no one knows that better than third-level institutions.
