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Education Committee agrees Work Programme for 2019 but expresses frustration with Department delay on Cassells Report evaluation

18 Jan 2019, 12:05

The Joint Committee on Education and Skills has agreed a new Work Programme for 2019 that includes ambitions to examine a wide range of issues of importance to students, teachers, parents and the wider community.

These include the future of Irish language education, broadening state recognition of learning disabilities, the demographic changes impacting schools, post-Brexit challenges to retain EU research funding for Ireland, and close scrutiny of Department of Education and Skills performance on school-building, expenditure and value for money.

However, for a second straight year, the Committee was obliged to note it is not yet equipped with the necessary information to consider the 2016 Report of the Expert Group on Future Funding for Higher Education, known as the Cassells Report, specifically its three options for reforming how third-level education is funded in Ireland.

Committee members expressed their frustration that they were unable to make any progress on this matter in 2018 because the Department of Education and Skills still has to deliver a long-requested assessment of the potential costs involved in implementing any of the three proposals. Peter Cassells, chairman of the group, delivered its report to the Department in 2016. The Committee wrote to the Department in January 2018 seeking its assessment of the potential costs involved in making any of the Cassells recommendations a reality.

“The Committee had wanted to make progress on Peter Cassells’ recommendations in 2018, but we are unable to progress this work until the Department provides its Economic Evaluation of the three options detailed within the Expert Group’s report,” said Committee Chair Fiona O’Loughlin TD.

“It is necessary for the Committee to relist this goal in our work programme for 2019 given our now 13-month-old request for necessary information from the Department. We want to drive forward the discussion on reforming how third-level costs are funded in Ireland and require the Department’s timely assistance to make this possible.”

Deputy O’Loughlin emphasised that the Committee is committed to making progress on an ambitious Work Programme for 2019.

Read the full Work Programme here.

Read the Expert Group’s 2016 report Investing in National Ambition: A Strategy for Funding Higher Education here.

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