The untimely, dependent chronicle & post

4th level Ireland

2008-08-04T15:46:00.008+01:00

Fourth level Ireland is a great idea. Its brilliant. It'll give us a competitive edge and drive the economy in the years to come. It will deliver breakthroughs which will be key to developing our society and culture. It will push the boundaries on that which we don't know. We should throw the kitchen sink at it.

Third level Ireland is a better idea. Keeping education free means that we have a steady stream of graduates to support the needs of business and society at large. It is absolutely critical that it is maintained and improved so that not only the quantity of people passing through the system but the quality of teaching and learning is exemplary amongst other nations. We should throw the kitchen sink at it.

UCD only has one sink in its financial kitchen to throw at things. Unfortunate, but true.

In the case of an anonymous university president, lets call him H Brady, no that's too obvious, Hughie B, he's got a bad case of the God Complex. In what I think is a desperate bid, by an over asserting man, to be remembered as one of UCD's greats, he is trying to make the headlines with big shiny buildings, snappy marketing and restructurings. His big plan to make UCD all about the 4th level Ireland sounds great, but the reality is different. I whinged about the mess UCD was in as it transfered from the traditional system to the modular one, but accepted that this was inevitable in any change of this magnitude. That was not at the nub of my grievance, however. My grudge is that in order to build a 4th level Ireland you need a worthy third level Ireland. In the same way that the third level depends on the secondary education in turn depending on primary level. The problem is that the Doctor wants to skip go, collect €200, have his cake and eat it, all at the same time. This, as we all know, causes heartburn and indigestion.

My experience of UCD is from an engineering perspective, a pretty blinkered view naturally, but one which I have seen both good and less good elements. The good is that lecturers are now focusing on the content of their courses more closely. The bad is that all the good lecturers are being stripped away from third level for fourth level, teaching hours have been slashed and the fundamental operation of the university, to learn through discourse and interaction, has been disregarded. Why? Cause they can. The government are going to pay out UCD the tuition fee even if the courses were being thought nothing. There is no repercussion or incentive for UCD to do well. They need to market their courses to enough leaving cert students to get them in, take the government funding and build ridiculous monuments to self interest.

I will never understand what was wrong with the old system of teaching. Just because Harvard do it, doesn't mean that we have to do it too. Ok, some good universities do have modular systems. But that doesn't mean that Oxbridge, University of London, The Sorbonne, Louvain or any other university that sticks with the old school way is a bad one. Fine if it suits some courses, but don't try banging a commerce shaped peg in an arts shaped hole. One size does not always fit all.

The next thing I don't understand is how the college managed to blow so much money on consultants. Surely if you build a good reputation, students will come to you rather then you to them? Remember that goal of being a top 30 university? Well, you don't get there by superficially ticking some boxes. Its got to be deeper then that. The gateway is a monumental tick in the box. Its a waste of time trying to build a huge facility for nothing. Why should we have to look abroad to entice postgrads to UCD rather then try to foster our own generation of postgrads? Why admit that you're not up to the task of providing a good supply of highly trained graduates and cut and run without them? It seems a pretty empty goal to me.

At the end of the day UCD has to decide what it wants. do we want to be forever trying to replicate what others have done, or are we going to look at how they got there, build a great university from the ground up. Deliver a well equipped community of academics which focuses on teaching and research in equal measure. Foster the generations of third level student to become the fourth level up to the task of really, rather then superficially, competing on the world stage? We the students, the academics and the public at large need to demand are return on our investment, justification for these changes, and accountability for all actions.

Refusing discourse on the matter is neither a responsible or transparent way for a civil servant like Hughie B to act. If you can't challenge him, what's the point in outrage, after all. The doctor is being rated by his peers of the governing authority, the department of education (more concerned with the balance sheet then standards) and his own ego. That is not proper public accountability, and frankly, people aren't getting outraged enough. If we only have one sink, then I'd suggest throwing the water at third and fourth level, but not in equal measure. But we really really need to start looking at how our decisions are made in universities and taking to task those who are in charge.

Uncharted Waters

2008-08-02T14:27:00.001+01:00

For most people of my age(the early twenties) a recession is by in large an alien concept which happens in other countries, in textbooks and to our parents. Too young to remember that the hard times were hard and brought up in a country full of promise, my generation is in, to misuse the cabinet's latest phrase, "uncharted waters". A large part of the state we come out of the current economic cycle will be decided by the reaction our generation has to challenging circumstances. This is the same challenge that other generations, in the not so distant past, have dealt with before; to varying degrees of success. Ireland has a history of following the boom bust cycle, growing at a rate faster then we are able to cope with. So how do we as a society ensure that the result of all this is a stable state rather then bust back to the dark ages?

Irish society has been changed profoundly as a result of the tiger. Ireland seems to have gained some self confidence, become highly educated and acquired a taste for expensive imports. We've changed from being the mediocre player on the scene, who plays every second season well and then crashes out, to being a Roy Keane of Europe. Ireland society has gained some economic stamina. It is that stamina which will be most challenged by these circumstances. If we as a society willingly, rather then forcibly, forgo the luxuries we have been accustomed to over the last decade and take risks wisely during the first period of recession, the rest , I propose, will set us up to ride out the recession. I don't particularly like my own undertones of socialism, however if this one leftist tendency is the only concession, it will be justified in the long term.

So this is the point at which we as a society need to get real with ourselves. This is a recession: not a downturn, downwards adjustment, a period negative growth or whatever padded way you want to put it. It’s not a reason for hysteria, but an opportunity for action. We need to stop being delirious and wake up to the reality of the times we live in. The soft landing we were promised by George Lee, Jim Power et al. didn't happen. Quite frankly, the rug was pulled from under our feet. In the same way nobody expects the Spanish inquisition, nobody expects the banks to find themselves in such hot water. The important thing to note however, through all the turmoil, there are still winners. Goldman Sachs essentially won a €4bn bet that the property market would crash when it did. While they posted losses, JPMorgan made a key acquisition in Bear Sterns and UBS got themselves a new major shareholder from the east. Interest rates are low, people are starting to put more into saving and banks are slowly getting to the point where they have enough liquidity to have confidence again. Four quarters after August '07 has seen plenty of disclosure by banks about the risk they are exposed to which will help restore the industry which underpins economic activity. Once the banking situation is hauled out of chaos to stability then things can start to improve.

Pile on top of that an inflated property market with ever increasing supply of housing stock (c60,000 in previous years) in a country of 4m people and you have a recipe for disaster. It didn't take a genius to work out that the growth, or even the sustainability in the property market was never really going to be a runner in the medium term. Ireland got too caught up in Ireland and took the eye off the proverbial ball. We stopped doing what it is that Ireland does best; taking money off other countries. Instead we started taking money from ourselves, and paying out to other countries wise to our roguish ways. So we put all our eggs in one basket and then started in fighting. We may have economic stamina but not that much economic smarts. Maybe I've been mislead that this generation is different and that we would have the drive, determination and will to safely come out of the next few years without slipping back into the developing world. Yet I still believe that now the Irish have had a bite of the 1st world we won't let it go without a fight.

We don't have a history of being a wealthy culture and we loose our best and brightest to foreign lands at the first sign of hard times. This has to change; we've got to focus on retaining the foreign investors, retaining the star players in our workforce and most importantly encourage Irish to start exporting again. But in order to achieve those aims strong leadership is needed. I have to say that I was impressed by Brian Cowen during his first couple of weeks, his bullish "take no prisoners" approach was a fresh one, totally contrasting Bertie's "gently now" approach. But while it is amusing to watch Enda and the boys get whipped around by the new boss and his henchmen, he's not had the opportunity to assert himself as a leader who could lead us through the next couple of years. He's been busy loosing a referendum which has alienated us from Europe, putting the fires out in its wake and realising that the government has no money, even though his immediately previous post might have offered an insight into that. To be honest, I don't think he'll be up to it. Not because he isn't capable, but because of the unfortunate circumstances he found himself in. In my opinion no sitting Dail TD is up to it.

Navigating troubled waters will be tough and tough decisions will need to be made by one and all. But it's largely up to those now due to enter the workforce to adopt the Nike "Just Do It" attitude, dig the heels in, roll up the sleeves and make wise decisions to push us all through what nobody seems to be willing to call: " The Recession"