The university sector must become much more accountable to the taxpayer, although this may "smack too much of the crass world of commerce" for some academics, the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, said yesterday.
In a major speech at UCD, the Minister said the price of academic freedom for the colleges may be "increasing openness and sensitivity to the needs of the broader community outside".
His address will be seen as providing support for what is seen in some circles as the "pro-business" agenda of the current OECD review of third-level education in the Republic.
A key submission to the review from the Higher Education Authority has proposed that colleges should be free to move outside the State sector if they wish.
Yesterday the Minister told his audience that "the vast bulk of funding for the third-level sector comes from the pockets of ordinary taxpayers, who will never set foot in a university even once in their lives". He said the high level of taxpayers' support for third-level education gave a right of overview of the universities, on how they were performing, and on how effectively they were giving a return on the taxpayers' investment. "We owe it to those people to constantly evaluate, review, set targets and renew the mandate of our higher education institutions."
The State was entitled, he said, to set "certain parameters of performance" covering such areas as:
Equity of access.
Relevance to economic needs.
Commitment to e-learning and to information communications technology.
Commitment to life-long learning.
Outreach to other communities.
Balance of funding from various sources.
The Minister pointed out how only 10 per cent of those from lower socio-economic groups made it to third-level education, compared to 90 per cent among the better-off.
"Clearly, then, we have still a long way to go before academic ability is a more important criterion for university entry than your parents' postal address."
Mr Dempsey said the proportion of public funds spent on higher education had increased by 77 per cent since 1997, and was now among the highest in the OECD. Some 80 per cent of funding comes from the State, one of the highest in the OECD.
It is widely expected that the OECD review, commissioned by Mr Dempsey, will say the third-level sector needs to find new sources of funding and lessen this dependence on the State. There has been speculation that the OECD may even back the return of colleges fees. In his address yesterday, Mr Dempsey said he wanted, as part of the OECD review process, to see a "positive, pro-active dialogue on the role of our universities in this rapidly evolving society.
"In the course of this dialogue we cannot continue to hark back to some fondly-imagined idyllic past. It may have been idyllic for those fortunate enough to get into university, but it can hardly have been so for the many more who were excluded."
