outsidein »

• Third level fees

  August 20, 2009 @ 3:01 pm | by Bryan

  University students will probably have to pay fees from next year. I don’t understand how anyone could see that as a sensible course of action.

  While some have questioned the very notion of a knowledge-based economy, that is the strategy that has been adopted by the government. That being the case, the assumption is that the same government will do all that it can to ensure that the country has as knowledgeable a workforce as possible. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m struggling to see where the reintroduction of third level fees fits in to this picture.

  In the early 80s, soon after its independence, Zimbabwe’s government decided to make primary and secondary education a priority. To that end, the cost of that education was reduced, and in some cases scrapped. Granted, in time, sustainability became an issue. That said, because the barriers to education were tackled, the country at one time had the most educated workforce on the continent.

  One of the things I admire most about Ireland is that it is not as divided along class lines as places like Zimbabwe or South Africa. Theoretically, a poor Irish person has almost the same educational opportunities as a rich one. Theoretically. The introduction of fees can only further distort the educational playing field.

  Questions of sustainability are a function of priorities. In the US for example, the argument for health care reform is that despite the cost, universal health care is a priority for the Obama administration. How much of a priority is education here? Is the thinking behind the proposed knowledge based economy about the quality of education as opposed to the quantity of people who receive it?

• Manufacturing scientists and engineers

  August 14, 2009 @ 7:18 am | by Bryan

  This also happened last year. The major concern, once the Leaving Certificate results came out, was Maths and Science. I suppose the official thinking is that research and development (R&D) represent the most lucrative aspect of the global economy and Ireland needs a workforce that allows it to attract as much of it to its shores as possible.

  That’s all well and good, but what happened to the theory of comparative advantage? What happened to the idea that countries should focus on what they are naturally best at? I’m not entirely convinced that if you have a population that leans towards the Arts, then focus on those, even if it is less clear how to monetize that. But at the same time, if you don’t, if you try to turn artists and social scientists into physicists and engineers, don’t you also run the risk of getting the worst of both worlds – average cogs in an R&D machine at the expense of talent elsewhere?

  Not too long ago, I had an interesting conversation with an academic in one of the large Irish universities. She was frustrated by the way in which commercial interests were dictating the academic priorities of that institution. Areas in which her faculty was strong were being sacrificed on the basis of market trends. Her feeling was that the university was becoming less of an institution of learning and more of an assembly plant for industrial inputs. I wonder if the same thing can also be said of the primary and secondary education sector.

• Two new words

  November 17, 2008 @ 9:15 am | by Bryan

  Two words have snuck into my vocabulary over the last few months. In my defence, that sort of thing can’t be helped when you are a full time student and actually do a little studying every now and again. Because I fall into that category, and particularly enjoy political science and economics, I’ve caught myself bringing up the words ideology and philosophy quite a bit in day-to-day conversation.

  Having said that, the fact that I don’t generally hear these words outside of an academic environment worries me. Think about it. The whole world is in economic crisis, or so we are told. Ireland is going through a particularly rough patch. A lot of this is because of the strong belief in a particular political and economic ideology that says that the government should do as little as possible. And yet, there have been very few discussions about that, and alternative ideologies.

  Why is that? How is it that having made a mess of things, there is no real desire to stop and examine if the beliefs that caused this mess are worth holding on to? The numerous discussions that are held daily on the economy almost all focus on how to make the status quo work better going forward. That happens without pausing to consider the fact that there may be better ways of going about things. And no, I don’t mean socialism – but the fact that socialism is generally though of as the only real option to a neoliberal philosophy is very sad.

  In a brilliant book titled Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman argues that television, by nature, does not lend itself to the transmission of complex arguments. Perhaps that explains why the economists who appear on air will be asked to predict the future, and come up with a remedy, like modern day prophets, but not to teach. A discussion on the history of economic thought and heterodox economic theories wouldn’t be nearly as exciting as one on how the next “great depression” is starting next Tuesday.

  Pity… Especially if that depression really does kick off next Tuesday.

• Knowledge based economy?

  October 29, 2008 @ 3:31 pm | by Bryan

  It looks like the education cuts in the budget will stand. After people have protested and vented their anger, teachers are going to have to make the most of a bad situation. The media will generally move on and there will probably be no shortage of other controversies and examples of underfunding for us all to worry about in the coming months.

  I wonder what the long term implications will be for education in Ireland. Having the second biggest class sizes in Europe won’t be great for the country’s reputation. But I wonder if this will translate to a significant deterioration in standards. Ireland could, for example, ‘out-source’ teaching. Although there is a move towards reclaiming schools from the church, maybe there will be a push for the private sector to plug the gaps.

  There are already many private schools here and they seem to be held in pretty high esteem by most. The government could encourage the private school sector to grow, assuming that the amount of public money that goes to a private student is significantly less than that invested in the boy or girl at a public school. The only problem is that the two-tier system would be further entrenched in a place that is resistant to the idea of the wealthy having access to better services than everyone else.

  Whatever happens, somethings needs to be done. Since low skilled jobs began moving to cheaper locations, like Poland and India, the mantra has been that Ireland needs to move up the skills ladder and create a knowledge-based economy. Is it just me, or is cutting funding to an underfunded schools sector and increasing the cost of getting a third level education not the best way to get there?

• Access to higher learning

  September 17, 2008 @ 9:30 am | by Bryan

  The ongoing debate on university fees has taken on new meaning for me. I recently started my post graduate studies on a full time basis. I could do that because I have the best wife in the world and the Credit Union is a fantastic organisation. I also have an incredibly supportive network of friends who I can lean on. All of that means that I can pay my way through school – international fees and all.

  I had an interesting conversation, a couple of days ago, with one of my new classmates. He is from county Galway and describes his background as being poor. As far as he is concerned, there are already a lot of barriers to third level education for less well off people. Even wihout having to pay university fees, the cost of going to college everyday, eating there and having to buy stationary and reading material is prohibitive. In his opinion, more financial support is needed to enable the people who most need higher education to get it. If that doesn’t happen, he feels that people like himself are likely to be trapped in a cycle of poverty.

  I understand that the proposal to abolish fees is meant to affect only the well of, but there is a real, and I think justified fear, that over time what began as fees for the rich will turn into fees for everyone but the very poor. But there is more to this issue than just fees.

  When you live in a place like Zimbabwe, you naively think that places like Ireland don’t have any poor people. You certainly don’t imagine that someone in Ireland could think of themselves as being poor, and that the system works against them. It’s a pity that this debate has not focused on access, rather than just fees.

• Seperate but equal

  August 20, 2008 @ 1:11 pm | by Bryan

  Fine Gael Education Spokesperson, Brian Hayes, has called for the separation of immigrant children whose English is poor from mainstream classes. The idea is that they will then be reintroduced to the regular classes when their English improves.

  I am a little surprised. Mr. Hayes called for the hijab to be banned in schools earlier this year on the grounds that “There is enough segregation in Ireland without adding this to it. Segregating in this way is not helpful to Muslims and not helpful to anybody.”

  Some people have been unhappy with Hayes’ proposal being labelled as ‘segregation’. But at the end of the day, that is what it is. Bear in mind that the idea behind the segregation of American schools was ‘separate but equal’. I’m struggling to see how the TD sees the wearing of headgear by some as segregation, but not the removal of some students from regular classrooms. Is it just me or are those positions inconsistent?

  What do teachers think of this proposal? The largest teachers’ trade union, the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO), has described it as ‘discriminatory, inequitable and deeply flawed’.  The high school union, the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) supports the idea of separate ‘immersion classes’ in the first few weeks of school that would concentrate on English language skills. I would have thought that real immersion would involve putting those students whose English isn’t good in an overwhelmingly English speaking environment.

  Karl Kitching has written a really good opinion piece on this issue. What must be taken into consideration, beyond questions of ethics, are the social repercussions of separating immigrant students. Most people feel that the formation of immigrant ghettos is a recipe for social disaster. Do we really want to start cultivating those problems in school children?

• The hijab in schools

  August 15, 2008 @ 12:12 pm | by Bryan

  

  A decision has been made concerning the wearing of the hijab in schools. Minister of State for Integration, Conor Lenihan, has decided that the government will not issue a directive on the subject. Having sought the advice of thousands of school principals, the minister found that “The overwhelming evidence is that it [the hijab] is not an issue in schools.” Schools will get to decide for themselves.

  My first reaction is that common sense has prevailed. But I still have two reservations. The first one has to do with the fall-out of this decision. What happens if a school decides that it will not permit students to wear the headscarf? Won’t that school be open to charges of discrimination? At some point, the government or courts may be forced to make a firmer decision.

  On the other hand, I agree that a headscarf is a non-issue. Which leads me to my second reservation. Are the underlying concerns surrounding this debate being investigated and addressed? Both Fine Gael and the Labour Party wanted to have the hijab banned from schools in order to promote ‘integration’ over ‘multiculturalism’. It would be a shame if this opportunity, to thrash out what those terms actually mean and how best to go about achieve the desired end, was lost.

• University Fees

  August 12, 2008 @ 10:44 am | by Bryan

  Fine Gael’s Brian Hayes claimed that the reintroduction of college fees by Fianna Fáil would be the most socially retrograde policy measure in a generation. Labour’s Ruairí Quinn called the proposal short-sighted and short-termist. Photograph: Cyril Byrne

  University fees are being discussed. The big question is whether or not undergraduate students should have to pay for their education.

  My alma mater is the University of Zimbabwe. We had to pay nominal fees as undergraduate students, but were also given a government grant that was at least twice the fees. But even with those grants, students from poor families really struggled. Apart from tuition and books, going to university meant forgoing a potential wage and having to come up with money for living expenses. The government grant just didn’t cut it.

  On the other hand, the government subsidies were unsustainable. The country couldn’t afford to invest enough money to both maintain and upgrade the University. As a result, there was never a sense that things were getting better, or even staying the same.

  I understand the argument that if Irish universities are to compete with the very best in the world, they need more funding than the government can provide. But I also understand why there is such an outcry at the idea of introducing fees. It could potentially increase the divide between the rich and everyone else. Even if some people were to be exempt from paying the fees, it would be very difficult to get the balance right.

  Taoiseach Brian Cowen did say that there were going to be difficult choices to be made. He was right.

• University funding

  July 31, 2008 @ 12:05 pm | by Bryan

  I was under the assumption we were already in a recession, but apparently, I have jumped the gun. We’re only slipping into a recession. I’m not an economist so all this talk of GDP, GNP, and quarter growth is a bit much for me.

  But that’s not where my confusion ends. I was under the impression that health and education were going to be spared from cutbacks. For some reason, universities are not being considered as part of that ‘education’ category.

  That would be understandable were it not for the fact that the economists keep going on about how Ireland needs to move up the skills ladder. Government officials have also said on occasion that the plan is to get more high skilled and technical jobs here as the more manual ones move to countries with cheaper labour. Unless I’m missing something, universities are at the heart of a knowledge-based economy.

  I’m planning on starting a master’s degree in the humanities in about 5 weeks. I bet that kind of ‘soft’ program will be the first to go if the universities become unable to cope financially. But I suspect that quite a few things are going to get axed in the coming months. Part of me almost wishes this recession would start already so we can get it over and done with.

• Minister Conor Lenihan – The Hijab

  July 5, 2008 @ 2:12 pm | by Bryan

  Something unexpected happened to me today. As I was going through the comments waiting to be moderated, I found one by Minister Conor Lenihan, the Integration Minister.  He had read the post on the hijab and the comments that were made on it.

  I would like to thank the minister for reading everyone’s thoughts and for sharing his. If he ever wants to share something or ask for people’s opinions on this blog, he is always welcome… provided he is happy to get both positive and negative feedback. His comments were:

  I appreciate some of the comments made on this blog site. It has been of help and will be of use when drawing up guidelines or otherwise in relation to school uniforms.

  Many of the contributions mirror the comments I have received from the 4,000 or so school Principals that I have written to on this matter.

  I shall make a decision, one way or the other, before the summer is out. I agree with the contributor who stated that there are far more important issues affecting integration and immigration than this particular controversy.

  For this reason we have been planning for some time a conference on diversity with regard to the education system. That conference on devising an integration strategy for schools will be held in the autumn.

  Regards – Conor Lenihan T.D., Minister for Integration.