Irish university presidents have called on the Government to double the number of postgraduate students and increase the number of university entrants by nearly 25 per cent by 2006.
In a report published yesterday, the Conference of Heads of Irish Universities (CHIU) urges annual average investment on university infrastructure of £215 million and £134 million on research, skills supply, social inclusion, lifelong learning and other current programmes during 2000-2006 National Plan.
This would allow the number of postgraduate students to rise from 4,245 in 1996-97 to 8,250 by 2006, and the total number of new university entrants to increase from 14,500 in 1997-98 to 18,000 by 2005.
CHIU is very critical of the ESRI's view that as the numbers of 19-21 year olds is likely to fall by 2006, there would also be fewer third-level students.
These views "do not tally with even the Higher Education Authority's conservative projections which predicted continued growth to approximately 120,000, and whose predictions for 199798 were exceeded by 5 per cent in the university area," the Conference says.
"The assumption that future investment in third-level education can be facilitated through savings due to falling numbers is incorrect," said CHIU chairman Dr Patrick Fottrell yesterday.
The university heads are also critical of the ESRI and the Government's Steering Committee on the Future Development of Higher Education for not setting targets to improve the current very low levels of third-level participation by disadvantaged and mature students. They propose raising the 13 per cent participation rate for students from unskilled manual backgrounds by 50 per cent by 2015.
Similarly, the proportion of mature students - at 2.3 per cent one of the lowest in the advanced world - should be raised to 15 per cent by 2005-6 and 25 per cent by 2010.
The CHIU report says: "Irish universities have higher student-teacher ratios than most other OECD countries; public expenditure per student and as a percentage of GDP is lower than most other OECD countries; and the expenditure on university research and development as a percentage of GDP is the joint lowest of all OECD countries."