Should third level education be entirely free? - YES

Seamus Donnelly
Ógra Shinn Féin

One of the central positions adopted by our movement is that everyone is equal, man or woman, heterosexual or homosexual, no matter what colour or creed we are all entitled to the same fundamental rights.

A belief in equality of opportunity to social rights such as health and education, form fundamental building blocks to our republican socialist thought. The notion that one should have to pay to attain an education - primary, secondary or third level- is alien to the idea of fundamental social rights.

Over the last year the heads of the third level institutions have actively lobbied the government for an increase in funding. Overall, the 26 counties rank 30th out of 34 OECD countries in terms of education expenditure as a percentage of GDP.

It is quite shameful that the government should now turn to students and their families to attempt to bail the government out of their own self made mess. It is unacceptable that after the best part of 20 years economic growth that our universities, colleges and Institutes of Technology should be some of the worst funded in Europe.

Having chosen to study in the 26 counties just as student fees were introduced in the six counties, I can say from my own anecdotal experience that the top up fee system introduced was most definitely a dis-incentive to study within the UCAS system.

For students studying a four year course and taking advantage of the government’s student loans then the average debt leaving university would amount to £24,000. This works out as £12, 000 government loan and £12,000 tuition fees over the course of the four years and fails to take into consideration the continuing rise of the tuition fees in line with inflation.

The fact that the government in the south are considering introducing a similar system that places such massive debt on students and their families at a time when many families are struggling to make ends meet demonstrate that Fianna Fáil and Greens are determined to target the weakest members of society.

Indeed the very idea of means testing students not based on what they can afford but on what their parents can afford is also ridiculous. Once student reach the age of 18 they are independent from their parents and responsible for their own choices and decisions.

Fees in education and this has been shown the world over are a disincentive to entry to third level education entry. The introduction of free third level fees during the 1990s transformed Irish education and opened the possibility of obtaining a degree up to a far greater number of people.

In spite of this families from working class and lower middle class backgrounds are disproportionately excluded from education. Perhaps the government should try to address this.
On 27 June this year the Irish Independent published the result of a Higher Education Authority study into the result of the effect of the removal of tuition fees from third level education in the 26 counties.

The study found that thousands of students from lower middle class homes had failed to advance to third level education in spite of the removal of the tuition fee primarily due to the current 'inadequate' income thresholds for grants, which act as an obstacle to students who come from the lower middle income groups.

The government should tackle outstanding problems surrounding the threshold for student grants to allow for participation in third level education of all the young people that feel they want to further their study in this manner.

University funding is undoubtedly an issue that needs to be tackled but I fail to see why fees are deemed the only option. I have over the past few weeks been bombarded by emails from my college's careers advisory service with companies such as Shell, JP Morgan and other investment banking bodies offering students summer internships and graduate jobs with a view to making use of the knowledge students have gained in their education to grow their businesses.

Given that these companies are taking advantage of the students that third level institutions turn out, perhaps they could pay for the costs of educating them. Perhaps a small increase in corporation tax might just save the third level sector?

It is time that the government to use some imagination to dig themselves out of the hole they and they alone have created for themselves and it is up to Sinn Féin as a party to communicate our vision of education to the electorate.