Core could be rotten: union

The Students' Union at TCD has voiced concern about plans to radically revamp the first year curriculum. Trinity's Provost, Dr Tom Mitchell, told E&L in March of this year that he would like to see a core common curriculum introduced in 1999-2000, by which time students of all faculties will take computing, communications and language courses. History, too, would be studied by everyone.

The union welcomes the plan in principle but is concerned that the initiative will not be resourced adequately and could lead to students being overwhelmed by conflicting academic demands from the core-curriculum modules and their own faculties.

Union president Adrian Langan says he fears the new modules - which could begin in a year's time - will be taught in classes of up to 500 in size. He is also worried that what he says are already inadequate resources in the language and information technology departments of the college will be stretched to breaking point.

"As an idea it's very laudable and we will be very anxious to help the Working Group on Curriculum Innovation as much as we can. The skills it proposes to teach are skills that are much needed in the jobs market, and if it works, the curriculum would be a big feather in the cap of Trinity graduates.

"We're just worried about how it's going to work in practical terms. The provost has been very open about the potential for large problems. For instance, students won't get very much out of the core curriculum if all it consists of is students attending classes in packed lecture halls just in order to scrape through the exams at the end of the year. Small tutorial groups are necessary if students are to explore properly the ideas in the course. The level of resources necessary to implement this will be massive.

"One of the proposals we'll be putting to the Working Group is that the curriculum be tailored to the needs of different faculties. We'll also be attempting to ensure that students' existing work burdens will not increase and that there will be a massive redistribution of resources to the IT and language sectors of the college. "However, the group is scheduled to report in February 1999, which leaves very little time for the radical things that are going to be suggested."

In his E&L interview in March announcing the initiative, Mitchell said he was concerned that the State's focus on supplying trained personnel to industry could inhibit future development and questioned the trend toward "early specialism and fast-track specialisation".

"If we don't have people who are innovative, who are creative, who have leadership skills and who can do research - if we only have technicians - what long term future is there?"

Mitchell also suggested that all students should have computer programming skills.

"Students need to know what programming and information systems are all about to understand their capacity, so they are familiar with them in a sophisticated way and can use them for more than simply wordprocessing."

However, he acknowledged there would be cost implications. Though he hoped the core curriculum would be introduced for incoming students in 1999 he said it must "be done properly and can't be tokenism. There's no use having someone spending six months studying French and then forgetting all about it."

"We have to get away from passive learning. It's only when students are put on their mettle and are made to work independently that they develop mental powers. They need active participation and a lot of independent study."