Press release
Cornerstone Reform of Higher Education - Minister Bruton and Minister Mitchell O’Connor
Published on
Last updated on
Published on
Last updated on
More funding for delivery of STEM courses, financial penalties for breaches of governance.
The Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton TD, and the Minister of State for Higher Education, Mary Mitchell O’Connor TD, today announced reforms which will link funding of higher education institutions to the delivery of key national priorities, including better alignment to skill needs of the economy, higher levels of performance and innovation, expansion of research; particularly with enterprise partners, better access for students at a disadvantage and improving lifelong and flexible learning opportunities.
This will be done by tying funding explicitly to delivery in these areas and by developing 3 year compacts with each college designed to deliver new System Performance targets, also announced by the Ministers today.
A high quality, responsive higher education system is crucial to delivering on our ambition to make Ireland’s education and training service the best in Europe by 2026. Today’s announcement ensures that our higher level institutions support innovation, are responsive to the changing needs of the economy and society.
Key changes to the funding formula being announced today include:
Important reforms that will be prioritised in 2018 include the following:
Key new targets for the next 3 years include:
Making the announcement, Minister Bruton said:
“These are really important reforms, which provide clarity on the expected outcomes for higher education over the next three years and on how funding will be allocated to our institutions to deliver on those outcomes."
“Shortly after being appointed Minister for Education and Skills, I set out that we must introduce new performance-based funding mechanisms and new targets for improved outcomes for the users and funders of the service."
“A high quality, responsive higher education system is crucial to delivering on our ambition to make Ireland’s education and training service the best in Europe by 2026. Today’s announcement will ensure innovation, good governance and excellent research are prioritized by our institutions, in line with our overall national goals. I’m particularly excited about the renewed emphasis on rewarding innovation. It is so important to reward and encourage leaders to try new, exciting things and I believe our new competitive innovation fund will have a really fantastic impact on the ground."
Minister Mitchell O’Connor said:
“The government provided additional funding for higher education in Budget 2018. Higher education, further education and training funding is more than €100m greater in 2018 compared to 2016. We’re committing today to transition towards a reformed funding model that is more transparent, consistent across higher education institutions, that incentivises actions in key strategic areas such as research and STEM provision, and supports improved accountability while also respecting institutional autonomy. This will ensure that the additional funding that has been made available for higher education is targeted effectively and that institutions are held accountable for how they use public resources."
“As we strive for even greater inclusion, access and diversity within our higher education the new System Performance Framework provides an ambitious programme of work for the higher education sector. These frameworks have changed the nature of the States interaction with our higher education institutions, from a largely budget driven process to a broader approach encompassing objective setting, and accountability by the sector."
Both Ministers expressed their thanks to the members of the Independent Review Panel for all of their work on producing the Review.
The Review of the current funding allocation model (RFAM) was produced by an independent expert panel, appointed by Minister Bruton in 2016 and chaired by Ms. Bríd Horan. The Panel made 33 recommendations to reform the model by which funding is currently allocated to higher education institutions.
ENDS
The new System Performance Framework outlines the government’s key objectives for higher education for the period up to 2020 and sets out how institutions are to be assessed during these years.
The six key objectives can be summarised as follows:
The Systems Performance Framework provides key metrics on which the system as a whole and the institutions can be monitored and evaluated.
The new System Performance Framework 2018 to 2020 builds on the previous higher education sectoral frameworks.
For this period, the six key objectives, in full, on which the higher education sector performance will be assessed, are:
These key objectives, as set out by Government, will form the basis of the next iteration of strategic dialogue process between the Higher Education Authority and the higher education institutions.
This report, which is now being published by the Higher Education Authority, reviews the performance and progress of the higher education system with reference to the previous performance based framework, published by the Minister in 2013. Implementation of this framework was overseen by the HEA through a process of ‘performance compacts’ and ‘strategic dialogue’ where higher education institutions set out a set of strategic and performance objectives which are formally agreed with the HEA.
The framework and associated dialogue process emerged from the development and implementation of the National Strategy for Higher Education to 2030, published in 2011, which recommended significant reform of the higher education sector.
An independent Expert Panel was appointed by Minister Bruton in 2016 to review the current allocation model for funding higher education and to make recommendations on the most appropriate funding model for the future.
The expert panel comprised:
The terms of reference for the panel were as follows:
The review process began in December 2016 and involved research and analysis and extensive consultation with stakeholders, including bilateral meetings. The review is informed by 11 Working Papers which examined inter alia, the key issues and questions, the cost drivers and the costing system underpinning higher education and international funding allocation approaches.