Sir, – Two articles (“Universities to hire 1,500 staff amid overcrowding” and “Recruitment embargo linked to talent drain” Education, August 1st) suggest two very different rationales for the creation of the 1,500 new university positions. Such rationales have important and conflicting implications for the undergraduate student experience and for the subject and possibly gender profile of those who are likely to be recruited to these new positions.
In the first article it is suggested that these posts will tackle the very high staff to student ratios in Irish universities (1:23 versus a European norm of 1:15). Thus one would expect that in any university the areas with the highest staff to student ratios would receive these additional posts (eg arts and business), with the disciplines with relatively better staff-student ratios (such as science and engineering) being least likely to get them. This kind of allocation would improve the undergraduate student experience in areas with particularly poor staff to student ratios where, because of huge increases in student numbers, access to staff can be very limited.
However, the second article, while reiterating these themes, refers to the casualisation of academic employment, “especially younger academics and researchers”.
Most of those who are on temporary contracts in Irish universities, according to the most recent data from the Higher Educational Authority, are full-time researchers employed by permanent (mainly male) senior academics on three-to-five-year research contracts in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and maths. Their work contributes to the career prospects of the permanent academics. The teaching responsibilities of these temporary researchers are typically very limited. Allocating the new posts to them will benefit those areas which are already relatively privileged in terms of staff to student ratios and will do nothing for the on-the-ground undergraduate student experiences in high-demand areas such as arts and business.
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The clarification of the real rationale for these posts by Minister for Further Education Simon Harris is important since they have different implications for undergraduate students, for the areas that will be given the opportunity to recruit new staff, and ultimately for the gender and subject profile of the universities.
Does the Minister want universities to prioritise disciplines with the worst staff to student ratios like arts and business? Or does he want universities to favour those more male-dominated areas such as science and engineering with their relatively better staff to student ratios? – Yours, etc,
Prof PAT O’CONNOR,
Professor Emeritus
Sociology and Social Policy,
University of Limerick,
Visiting Professor,
Geary Institute,
University College Dublin,
Dublin 4.