Micheál Martin
Ceist:98. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Minister for Education and Skills if officials in his Department are on the interdepartmental group set up to examine third level education funding. [16805/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 18 April 2018
Ceisteanna (98)
Freagraí scríofa
The programme for Government provided that the Cassells report would be referred to the Oireachtas Education Committee, who would review its recommendations and outline a proposed funding plan for this sector, as part of the process for building political consensus around the most appropriate means of ensuring a sustainable funding model for the future.
While I have awaited the recommendations of the Oireachtas Committee in relation to a long term funding model, we have developed an employer exchequer funding mechanism and increased public funding into the sector, as well as a series of other reforms. In total, the government is investing €100m more into the higher education sector than before the publication of the Cassells report. We are also investing €200m in a PPP programme for the IOT sector and have set out an ambitious 10 year €2.2bn capital programme for the higher and further education sector.
Following publication of the Cassells report, my Department established an inter-departmental working group on future funding to consider issues relevant to the development of a long term sustainable funding model for higher education.
The Group is made up of representative from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Department of Finance, Department of Business, Enterprise, and Innovation, the Higher Education Authority, Solas and my Department. Officials in my Department also provide secretarial support to the Group.
I received a request from the Oireachtas Education Committee in January 2018, 18 months after the publication of the Cassells report, requesting that my Department carry out a comprehensive economic evaluation of each of the recommendations put forward in the Cassells report.
My Department will now undertake an economic examination of each of the proposed policy options that are presented in the Cassells report to assist the Committee in its consideration of this matter. In carrying out this economic examination, my Department will also consider:
- How the additional funding which has been called for by the Expert Group can positively impact on learners
- What is the appropriate mix of apprenticeship programmes and upskilling programmes for those in work and how that impacts on demand and funding models
- How responsiveness to skills gaps can best be secured.