• `Irish' university is mobile phoney

  A phony "Irish university" is marketing degrees internationally via the Internet. An EL reporter in the US, posing as a prospective student, has been offered an English literature degree from "Glencullen University", without any study, for $960. EL was contacted recently via email by an American man enquiring about the bona fides of Glencullen University. The college's website offers a detailed and plausible description of its Dublin complex, home to a trampolining club, a bus service to the halls of residence and even "a Muslim Prayer Room on the main campus". It also lists about 100 academic programmes, all available via "distance learning". p
  

• The Burning Question: Do you think the cinema caters well for teens?

  Alan Mulroy p
  

• Teenaged mum not a la mode in Dutch

  The Dutch are congratulating themselves on virtually eliminating teen pregnancy by providing sex education and free contraceptives, as well as fostering liberal attitudes. Only 0.7 per cent of pregnancies in the Netherlands are to 15- to 19-year-olds - less than half the 1.6 per cent rate of this State. Britain has a rate of nearly 5 per cent (the highest in Europe), and in the US the rate is 10 per cent. p
  

• More deadly than the male?

  Fifteen-year-old "women" brag, I'm told, about how many men they can "shift" in one night. "Shifting" doesn't mean what it did 10 years ago. Oral sex and even full sexual intercourse now have the same meaning as French kissing did 15 years go. Mothers talk, in shocked tones, about girls going to discos without knickers for the purposes of sexual play. I've heard south Dublin mothers ranking girls' schools on how uninhibited, to put it politely, the girls are. The mothers base their knowledge on what their daughters have told them. When I visited a disco for private secondary school students in Dublin, I saw many tough, confident, young women in the mood for sexual provocation. The young men, in general, seemed less mature and had a lost quality. I could understand why so many of them seemed determined to get drunk. Inside the disco, teenagers were engaging in heavy sexual foreplay; nobody overtly watched, but there was an element of public performance involved. I witnessed other scenes in an adult pub in Dublin where couples performed sex acts on each other. Here the activity was more extreme, but it was the same idea - sex as performance art. When I heard recently that a teenage boy had visited a hospital consultant because he was concerned about his sexual performance, I wasn't surprised. Some young women have begun to objectify and rank men in the same way that women have been objectified by men. Young women, too, worry about their sexual abilities. The current preoccupation with breast size in teen idols and ordinary teenagers alike illustrates the point. Obsession with appearance is part of the objectification process. Parents are talking about not just how young women are growing increasingly predatory sexually, but also about how cruel they can be. The mothers of teenage sons talk about how vulnerable their "boys" are to being emotionally manipulated by young women who appear to be heartless. Young men hurt women too, of course. Often because they are as confused as young women are about boundaries around sexual behaviour. But when certain pubs have backrooms where teenagers retreat for a few minutes of anonymous, consensual sex, you cannot blame the men. Women are as responsible as men are for an atmosphere in which romance is dead, long live sexual conquest. A few readers sent me critical letters and Mass cards recently when I expressed the view that teenagers need to understand the difference between procreational and recreational sex if they are to begin to use contraceptives responsibly. By recreational sex, I didn't mean sex without intimacy and some degree of commitment, or at least enough discussion and negotiation so that nobody gets hurt. Not that it matters what I say: sex without commitment or intimacy is the kind of sex that many teenagers are having. And they are having it because that is the kind of society we have created for them. The TV programme The Villa is typical of current sexual mores. Put six strangers together in a Spanish hacienda, three men and three women, and see what happens. When they end up in bed together, film them. The typical conservative reaction is to ask, how can young women think so little of themselves that they allow themselves to be "used" for sex? In reality, it's often the young women who think so little of the men. It's as likely to be the women who are the users. In The Villa, the women speak much more rudely of the men than the other way around. p
  

• Instinctive behaviour is primitive response

  Parenting is not a complex science, according to Paranoid Parenting, a new book by Dr Frank Furedi, rather it is a normal and natural undertaking that involves a special relationship. Ironically, going against his own thesis, the English sociologist advises parents not to listen to the so-called experts in human behaviour, but "trust their own instincts". Has Dr Furedi ever witnessed a parent totally distraught, not knowing how to cope with a child who is out of control or refuses to come out of his room? The "instinct" is often to take the child by the scruff of the neck and shake him into conformity - hardly a desirable parenting response. I agree that parenting involves a special relationship. However, as adults will know, intimate relationships are complex in nature, not only because of the personal complexes each individual brings to the relationship but also because of the competing needs of the parties to the relationship. p
  

• Teachers' protest fuelled by Government breach of promise

  ICTU leaders like Des Geraghty `believe the PPF is the only show in town'. p
  

• Cambridge founders in Internet challenge

  The London School of Economics (www.lse.ac.uk) has a very busy homepage with clearly defined links to all its areas. The various sections are all made to sound so interesting that it is hard to know where to start (not a regular complaint when it comes to college sites). One that caught my eye is the link to Fathom. Clicking in you find out that this is a project created by New York's Columbia University and the LSE to project the values and content of the world's greatest universities and cultural institutions into the digital world. p
  

• Site of the week: www.tcd.ie/Economics

  Economics is sometimes referred to as the dismal science, but its profile has been raised here in the last few years and making money is now considered sexy. The first chair of political economy at Trinity College was established in 1832, so the study of economics has a long history there. This website continues the good work. p
  

• Your web questions answered

  Send your WebWorld queries to pcollins@irishtimes.com or by post to Padraig Collins, The Irish Times New Media, 4th Floor, Ballast House, Aston Quay, Dublin 2 p
  

• More sites to see: Our web critic looks at Irish famine websites

  National Archives p
  

• Parent power

  Even before she started writing, Bernie Purcell knew that her book, For Our Own Good - Childcare Issues in Ireland (Collins Press), would raise hackles. Controversially, Purcell argues that children should spend less time in creches, with childminders or au pairs and more time with their parents. p
  

• Setting the standard in Finglas

  The Fingal ICTU centre for the unemployed runs a small creche upstairs from its offices in Finglas village. The creche can cater for around 20 children, who are divided into two groups, with the under-twos separated from the older children. p
  

• A step by step guide to business

  Exam structure p
  

• A step by step guide to Home Economics

  The paper is two hours 45 minutes long. You must answer five questions out of nine. All questions carry 80 marks, making a total of 400 marks. Higher-level students must answer two questions from both Section 1 and Section 2 and may choose their fifth question from either section. Ordinary-level students must answer one question from both Section 1 and Section 2 and may choose their final three questions from either section. The content of this course for both the higher and ordinary levels is similar. However, more detail and depth is required for a higher-level answer. p
  

• Net Notes: Your guide to online information

  As business students, you have to keep abreast of current affairs, so the websites which will interest you most are those which provide daily or weekly news coverage of the business world. A number of such sites are listed below, but you should also become adept at consulting the websites of national and regional newspaper from around the world. The best place to go for quick access to most of these is the online newspaper collection of the Internet Public Library (http://www.ipl.org/reading/news/), where the relevant links are sorted by country. p
  

• Creating an inclusive `childcaring' society

  According to Purcell, to do so we all need to embrace the following: p
  

• Parent Power

  Our current childcare situation places working parents - and women in particular - under great stress. Research shows that women in full-time jobs are still responsible for 75 per cent of household chores. According to Purcell, it is women, rather than men, who think about and plan for their children's needs - who needs to visit the dentist, who needs new shoes and the like. Fathers have an important role to play. According to Purcell, it is better that both partners work 30 hours each per week and co-parent than having one parent work 50 hours per week while the other has parenting responsibility. However, if men are to play a full role in parenting, it's vital that they are allowed their own parenting styles, rather than being forced to adopt those of their partners. p
  

• Making a mark in social studies

  The name Mark Morgan may not ring a bell for you, but you'll certainly be aware of his work. Over the years he's be involved in a number of important, high-profile studies - on adult literacy, the use of alcohol and other drugs by young people and, most recently, university dropout rates. p
  

• Factfile

  Education: p
  

• Second Celtic Tiger lecture

  What next for the Celtic Tiger? Jim O'Leary of Davy Stockbrokers will address the question in the second lecture in this series, this Thursday evening at 8 p.m. p
  

• New education strategy for Gaeltacht areas proposed

  NUI Galway proposes to increase the number of courses available in Gaeltacht areas such as here in Connemara looking out to the Twelve Bens p
  

• Course Profile: MA in history of design and the applied arts

  Course Profile: p
  

• It helps being a bright spark

  Karl Byrne thought he'd never get out of school. "I was mad into money," he says. "I wanted to get out and earn some decent money. I knew I didn't want to go to college - that was for sure." p
  

• Four-year apprenticeship required to qualify

  The electrician's trade is highly specialised and skilled, requiring a detailed understanding of complex electrical circuits and rigid safety practices. p
  

• Distance study lends clarity

  Damien Owens is a senior manager in data services with Eircom. He is also Dad to Clara (7) and twins Vivienne and Hilary, aged four. He began the MBA with Open University in 1997 and completed the programme last year. "I chose distance learning because our daughter Clara was little, the twins were on the way and I was working in the international division of Eircom and spent a lot of time travelling. With these pressures on my time, it would have been very difficult to have fitted in a conventional part-time or evening MBA. I had to find an MBA that would fit my lifestyle. As I wanted to do the course sooner rather than later, distance learning was the solution. With the Open University it didn't matter when I studied. I could snatch time on buses or planes and I could also choose the pace of study. "Some people worry about feeling isolated as a distance learner, but the Open University offers good support. There are monthly tutorials in Dublin where you get an opportunity to meet fellow sufferers, there was the option of a residential school, we had electronic conferencing to sort out different interpretations of course material and each student has a personal tutor. Tutors also have a day job, so they appreciate your constraints and are very supportive. "For a course like this good materials are essential and I was more than satisfied with the standard of the materials provided. The OU gave us every thing we needed and it also provided a paced study guide which indicates on a fortnightly basis what material should have been covered or asssignments completed. "Each course module is like a wave coming into the shore. Keep up with it or stay ahead and it's comfortable, fall behind and there are many waves waiting to get you and a feeling of despair comes all too easy if you get behind. I would caution people about taking on too many modules simultaneously. This can be counterproductive as it leads to cramming and a feeling that this damned course is taking over my life. But would I do it all again? Definitely!" p
  

• Green students are going for environmental science

  The issue of waste management may not inspire too many Leaving Cert students to do environmental science, but it is one of the most important ecological issues facing the State at this time. However, the environmental science field is an enormously broad topic, says Professor Emer Colleran, chair of the department of microbiology and acting course director of the environmental science course in NUI Galway. It ranges from straightforward field ecology to environmental legislation and monitoring and environmental impact assessment and so on. "The kind of slant we have taken on it in Galway, and we deliberately did this from the very beginning, was that we wanted to be very much scientific." The "softer" side of environmental science, or environmental legislation, is not what the course is about, says Professor Colleran. "As a result, the students have to take the main common, if you like, first-year subjects - biology, physics, chemistry, maths, earth science. They then take a fairly solid course in botany, zoology and chemistry in second year. Again, the whole purpose is to build up the science in the first two years." Students can be taken aback when faced with the tough first- and second-year scientific courses. In first year, there is an optional one hour a week on environmental topics, which is not examined, however it is only in second year that the students take a course in environmental management. For the first three years of the course, students are taught environmental law by lawyers. This element, would be unusual in science courses, according to Prof Colleran. In third and fourth year, virtually all their topics are on the applied environmental side of the course and students are given flexibility in their latter years to specialise in certain areas. p
  

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