The Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, embarks on a consultation exercise this week seeking radical proposals to take our school system to the next level of development. Meanwhile a high-powered delegation from the Paris-based OECD will shortly visit the Republic to conduct a much needed review of higher education.
The two exercises should produce some fresh thinking, a commodity in painfully short supply in the education system right now. While some of the ideas to emerge may be impractical, the very act of casting around for fresh inspiration must be commended.
One of the most influential voices in the debate over higher education will be the Higher Education Authority (HEA). At the weekend it made a submission to the OECD, which included the radical suggestion of allowing publicly-owned institutions to "evolve into" private not-for-profit colleges, similar to Harvard and Yale. If Mr Dempsey or the OECD were looking for an idea to jolt the education system out of its sleepy complacency, this might be it. It is also likely to meet much opposition, particularly if it made access more difficult.
The current arrangement where the Government funds approximately 80 per cent of activity at third level is a comforting one. Most academic staff have permanent tenure, undergraduates do not pay tuition fees and the State gets a regular supply of well-educated graduates to fill key areas of the economy. But the HEA chairman, Dr Don Thornhill, poses two questions? Will our universities and institutes of technology be the "ideas factories" of the future? Will they ensure that we are successful players in the knowledge society?
He answers in the negative. "The existing policy and funding frameworks will not allow the sector to meet these challenges". There is some strong evidence for this view. The performance of Irish colleges, in terms of graduation rates at degree and post-graduate level, is below best international performance. We have a large number of institutions for a small country and attrition rates are high.
Dr Thornhill believes the system is too rigid. Institutions are often "micro managed", with decisions on major projects decided by the Department of Education and ultimately the Department of Finance. Salary levels are also set according to central Government guidelines and universities have little leeway to pay top researchers the kind of money available elsewhere. The Institutes of Technology are in a worse position, with the Minister for Education's approval required for new academic programmes.
The received wisdom in Government and among the academics is that third level institutions are essentially publicly funded state agencies and instruments of public policy. The HEA does not agree. It is a viewpoint which may prove highly controversial. But at a time when debate in education is muted, Dr Thornhill and his colleagues have raised a set of compelling questions.