Madam, - What I find most interesting about the current spat between Minister for Education Mary Hanafin, and Dr Hugh Brady of UCD over alleged "poaching" of academic staff is that the Government has for some time now been promoting an entrepreneurial, competition-driven, economy-orientated conception of higher education. Dr Brady has simply taken up and run with that conception.
Given such a conception of higher education "head-hunting" seems to slip into place quite naturally - so why is the Minister so uneasy?
My hope is that Ms Hanafin - who has proved to be a good Minister in the education portfolio up to now - has seen that the Government's underlying conception of the nature, role and purpose of higher education is in need of some urgent reappraisal.
It often takes a particular unexpected and controversial implication of one's underlying conception of something to awaken one to its problems and, if that's what has happened in this case, then it is to be welcomed and those of us who are uneasy with Dr Brady's approach to higher education should be grateful to him for bringing the issue to a head. - Yours etc,
HARRY McCAULEY, Department of Philosophy, NUI Maynooth, Co Kildare.
Madam, - In deriding the desire of UCD's president, Dr Hugh Brady, to maintain a competitive market for the expertise of academics, Dr Peadar Kirby of DCU tells us that "most academics, in my experience, do not view their expertise as a commodity to be possessed for private profit but as knowledge to be shared with colleagues and students" (Letters, August 31st).
To test this, let Dr Kirby answer one question: provided he could continue to share his knowledge with colleagues and students, would he be willing to have his remuneration halved? Only if the answer is yes can one conclude that he indeed views his expertise as being unworthy of private profit for himself.
One could, indeed, conclude that Dr Kirby is simply fearful of international competitive pressure in academia, and it is interesting that he expressed wariness of globalisation in Prof Joseph Stiglitz's recent lecture "Making Globalisation Work" (Finance, August 31st).
Every educator deserves his/her financial reward and it would be unjust to deny, through a cartel, better rewards to better educators. - Yours, etc,
TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin.
Madam, - When Mary Hanafin and Bertie Ahern decry the "poaching" of employees by University College Dublin, do they mean that UCD is openly advertising available positions and thereby running the risk that employees of other universities might apply? Is UCD actually luring these unsuspecting academic serfs into its clutches by offering them the market rate for their skills? Clearly such unscrupulous practices must be stamped out! When universities stop colluding to control the opportunities of their best and brightest, what sort of world will we live in? - Yours, etc,
KURT TIDMORE, Carrigaline, Co Cork.
Madam, - I note that Dr Brady of UCD seems to be concerned that the draft protocol proposed between the universities to prevent "poaching" of staff may be anti-competitive.
While Section 4 of the Competition Act 2002 prohibits "cosy cartels", no doubt the head of my own alma mater is also aware that Section 5 of the Act prohibits an undertaking from unilaterally abusing its "dominant" position!
Yours, etc,
JOHN R QUIGLEY, Senior Lecturer, Limerick Institute of Technology, Limerick.