The USI/UCCSU Prefrendum

preferendum

'Funding our future: The national Preferendum'
You decide.

This year, the issue of funding for third level education has once again been at the forefront of student issues. UCCSU’s current position is that the third level sector should be fully funded by the state via taxation.

USI’s current policy is that the Exchequer (i.e. the taxpayer) should bear the entire cost of tuition fees for Irish/EU students through progressive taxation. This policy has been reaffirmed by votes at USI Congress on a number of occasions, most recently in 2009. In light of the fact that the Student Contribution will be €2,250 in September 2012 and the Minister’s signal that it’s the Government’s intention to increase the contribution to €3,000 by 2015, USI has decided to consult the membership to determine if its current funding policy is the most appropriate policy to achieve equity of access.

Each year delegates from USI member Students’ Unions across the island gather for Congress to elect the USI sabbatical officers and to set USI’s policies. UCC sends 19 voting delegates to this conference, correlating to the number of students in the college.

The UCC delegation requested that the ‘Preferendum’ be referred back to a later date to allow further consultation. The result of this being that a Special Congress has been called for the 23rd of May.

To make the process as democratic as possible, the votes of the UCCSU delegation will be determined by the votes of a quorate online ballot taken from the 13th of May till the 20th of May. Please log onto www.usivote.com for details on the options available and how to vote. We have done up a comprehensive document of the options available to you here so make sure to read it before voting.

All 19 of UCCSU's votes will be the same, in order to have maximum impact, and determined by the result of the ballot. Your vote will determine USI's fees policy – make sure to keep checking www.collegeroad.ie, facebook and twitter for updates on the campaign.

For the facts check: http://issuu.com/uccsudeputypresident/docs
For more information contact deputy@uccsu.ie

Thoughts?

kellogscoffey

I like the idea. Not sure if any progressive or an alternative direction will ultimately emerge, but I like the fact that several options are on the table.

Have had a brief look at so far. I'll check it out properly soon.

Patriciamc93

I think the best option is pay your fees back after college once you are working. It is the fairest of all systems....... In my opinion. The goverenment would only have to worry about maintenance grants.
Plus employment for graduates would increase cause the goverenment would want there money back and so would probably be giving tax relief to companies who hire graduates.... Or something along those lines!

And also the amount you pay would be relative to the course you are doing and your expected future income I.e about 50,000 for med and 30k for arts/commerce etc ..... (or what ever the figures are)!

Must read them all in full though once the exams are over.... But this is and has always been my personal opinion!

Manach

Getting the bottomless pit of money that is the taxpayers to fund 3rd level courses, might not be the easiest sell in the current economic climate. Wait for a first pay cheque and the amount of funds that the State deducts from it, one might experience a Pauline conversion.

Eliot Rosewater

Though one must be happy that one's views are being sought I think that the way in which this pre-referendum is being run is highly flawed, and one could easily argue that it's merely a PR programme to give USI policies a veneer of democratic consent.

There are two problems with the voting scheme that, in my opinion, undermine it. First, the results of the pre-referendum are "filtered" through the colleges. This is exactly like the electoral college system in American Presidential Elections. We're not voting together to set policy directly; we're voting for others to subsequently vote for that policy on a higher level. The problem with this setup is that the majority opinion does not necessarily win. The first election of George W. Bush is an example of this failing, where the majority preference was too concentrated in certain areas and so only grabbed a limited number of "electoral college seats".

Second, UCCSU's position is clearly anti-democratic.

All 19 of UCCSU's votes will be the same, in order to have maximum impact

This pisses me off mainly because it's a classic vague political statement that doesn't actually mean anything. Why does anyone want "maximum impact"? And "maximum impact" against what? Who will be taken aback when we impact maximally with our 19 delegate votes? That sentence just doesn't make sense.

But anyway: one policy only needs to get about 30% of the UCC vote and then it will get 100% of the delegates. The plurality of opinion present in UCC on the matter will simply be ignored. Combine this with the electoral college problem and it's not at all unlikely that the winning policy will only have received 25% of the vote nationally.

These are obvious problems with the electoral system that have, in other settings, been widely debated. Last year the UK had a referendum on removing FPTP, which is UCCSU's policy here. It is patently unfair, and the board of the Students' Union should be able to see that. I would not be surprised if the real motivator here is that they know their preffered stance will rank highly, and by using FPTP they can convert all the votes of UCC students into the ones they want.