THE IRISH Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) has labelled as “outrageous” proposals for work practice changes relating to the Croke Park agreement which would affect academics.
The preliminary NUI Galway document proposes a longer working year, student evaluation of staff and changes to academic freedom.
“The proposals as tabled are absolutely outrageous,” Mike Jennings, general secretary of the federation said last night. “They would destroy the whole concept of a university . . . they are so bad that I really wonder if the university authorities at the highest level are even aware of the document because if by some miracle IFUT were to agree to them, it would no longer be a university as understood in any country in the world.”
Meanwhile a former president of the Teachers Union of Ireland has called for a meeting of Irish academics to resist the proposals.
“It is vital in a democracy that academics have the freedom to say what they want,” argued Paddy Healy, a lecturer in physics at NUIG. “But they intend to remove tenure . . . Erosion of tenure is very fundamentally anti-democratic,” he said.