Tues. Dec 3rd, 2013

The Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) is launching a study of how workplace environments for lecturers and researchers can be improved to assist teaching and research.

The initiative follows a declaration by Education Ministers of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), acknowledging that "a more supportive environment for staff to fulfill their tasks is needed.”

Since then Education International, the international body for all teachers' unions, has been working to make that commitment a reality.

The IFUT study is being carried out in collaboration with the TUI in Ireland and in partnership with education unions in eight other European countries, including the UK and Germany.

Mike Jennings, General Secretary of IFUT, said that the study "will be based on a survey which individual members will be asked to complete by email. It will require the support of individual IFUT members to be effective.

“This is not simply an issue of seeking more funding. There is an even deeper crisis of perspectives in the management of universities, a failure of imagination and a rush towards marketisation and managerialism,” Mike Jennings said.

ENDS

For further information on this press release please contact:

John Gallagher, John Gallagher Consulting Tel. 087 9369888

Mike Jennings, General Secretary, IFUT Tel. 087 6776747