We take the view that, in any review of the infrastructure for initial teacher education (ITE) in the north of Ireland, it is reasonable to expect that there is a place for a small, specialist and high-performing institution in the Catholic educational tradition, particularly one which is located in an area of economic disadvantage.
St Mary's has set out a vision for the future of ITE provision in Northern Ireland and produced a position paper in support of this.
The vision statement envisaged the development of an infrastructure which would display three key attributes:
- It should be pluralist
- It should be shared
- It should have a distinctive role for St Mary’s as an autonomous institution.
On 3 December 2014, without consultation, the College was informed by the Minister at DEL, Dr Stephen Farry, that he planned to remove the small and specialist premia from the grant for 2015-2016.
The Minister’s plan to remove the small and specialist institution premium funding has less to do with his Department facing budget cuts and more to do with a blatantly opportunist decision to try to force an outcome to his review of Initial Teacher Education. Dr Farry does not have political consensus across the parties to support his objective to integrate initial teacher education. Also, it is disingenuous of him to argue that the removal of premium funding does not impact on frontline services and that it does not apply to higher education institutions in other parts of the UK.
The Westminster government devised premia funding because it recognised that whilst the quality and diversity offered by small and specialist institutions was of significant value, it could not be delivered solely based on a funding model that was geared to the economies of scale of a large university. This is precisely the position of St Mary’s: it relies on the premia funding to be sustainable, and in return it delivers high quality and distinctive provision. The Minister proposes to withdraw these payments, which were introduced here in 2008, even though he knows that the premia were withdrawn from most universities and colleges in England and Wales because the funding environment there underwent radical change: the cap on student intake was removed, and much higher student tuition fees were introduced. Both of these changes meant that the income of colleges went up considerably, and they no longer required the payment of premia to remain viable. The funding environment here underwent no such changes, so the Minister's proposal consigns the College to the worst of all worlds: not permitted to increase its student numbers, low tuition fees, and yet refused the premia to compensate.
It would appear that the College’s vision for a shared approach to initial teacher education has been rejected in favour of the use of political power to achieve the desired outcomes of the Minister at DEL.
In these unfortunate circumstances St Mary’s will defend an educational ideal, it will resist enforced integration of initial teacher education provision and it will continue to promote an approach which is welcoming of difference and committed to sharing.
We have stated on many occasions that this is a political issue, which is cross-cutting and contentious. We do not believe that Dr Farry should be using the privilege and power of his Ministerial position to act without consensus in the way that he proposes to do. The Alliance Minister has decided, without even consulting, how Catholic identity in teacher education should be accommodated in an integrated system.
Professor Peter Finn
Principal