Higher education strategy group announced

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Release date: 07 Feb 2009

The Government has announced the establishment of a steering group commissioned with developing a new national strategy for higher education. The steering group will examine how Ireland can become more innovative in creating high-knowledge jobs that can help the country's economic renewal, according to Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe. The new strategy will set out the blueprint for the sector over the next two decades, the Minister said.

The chairman of the group is economist and banker Dr Colin Hunt. Formerly of Goodbody Stockbrokers, he works with the Australian bank Macquarie Capital Advisers. Dr. Hunt is a former special adviser to Brian Cowen in the Department of Finance and a former special adviser to Martin Cullen in the Department of Transport.

Other members of the steering group are:

Dr John Hegarty, provost of Trinity College Dublin;

Marion Coy, president of Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology;

Dick Lehane, former senior vice-president of worldwide manufacturing at the EMC corporation;

Paul Rellis, managing director of Microsoft Ireland;

Peter Cassells, chairman of the National Centre for Partnership Performance;

Shane Kelly, president of the USI;

Michael Kelly, chairman of Higher Education Authority;

Dr Mary Canning, former World Bank education specialist and HEA member;

Brigid McManus, secretary general of the Department of Education;

Martin Shanahan, assistant secretary of the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment;

Mary Doyle, assistant secretary of the Department of An Taoiseach;

Robert Watt, assistant secretary of the Department of Finance.

Two international higher-education experts will also join the group.

Under its terms of reference, the group will:

Examine the effectiveness of the use of resources and identify how any additional resource requirements can be met, having particular regard to the difficult budgetary and economic climate;

Consider the role of Irish higher education in modern societies and, in particular, in the knowledge society;

Describe and analyse the current environment of Irish higher education including its student numbers, funding, funding models, organisational arrangements;

Assess the international environment in which the Irish higher education system operates, including the benchmarking of the system against relevant international comparators;

Develop a set of national policy objectives for Irish higher education for the next 20 years, with more focused targets for the sector for the next five years;

Identify the operational framework of the higher education system, including the number and roles of institutions within it which will enable it to deliver on these policy objectives.

The review group will be supported by a secretariat led by Fergal Costello, a senior figure in the Higher Education Authority (HEA).

The Government wants higher education to be one of the key engines driving economic recovery.

The OECD review in 2004 called for a 'quantum leap' in funding in order to boost the international standing of the third-level sector in the Republic.

The group is expected to complete its work by the end of the year.

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