Ninth Level Ireland

“The University of Bristol has warned that it may have to make staff redundant despite making a £6.1 million surplus in the past financial year. In a letter to staff this month, Eric Thomas, the vice-chancellor, says the surplus, which represents less than 2 per cent of turnover, ‘could easily be eroded’ and was £10 million short of the university’s surplus target for next year. At the same time, annual increases in the university’s income ‘will rise by much less than the 10 per cent we are used to,’ he writes. As well as setting up early retirement and voluntary redundancy schemes, the university will help staff move to part-time employment, reduce their hours or take career breaks. Numbers of academic programmes on offer may be ‘rationalised’ and a review of administrative processes is under way …” (more)

[Times Higher Education, 26 February]

“Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan T.D., has today announced the establishment of five new Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Strategic Research Clusters (SRCs), representing a €23.9 million investment in ground-breaking, collaborative research activities involving seven academic institutions and 22 companies. A relatively new element in SFI’s portfolio of supports, the SRC programme was first introduced in 2007 to link scientists and engineers in partnerships across academia and industry to address crucial research questions, foster the development of new and existing Irish-based technology companies, and to grow partnerships with industry …” (more)

[Education Ireland, 25 February]

“Cambridge – bastion of male dominance – still! So I’ve referred the buggers to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission for investigation. It’s because of the appallingly wide gap between what the university pays men and women. The university’s own Equal Pay Report shows that men are paid on average nearly a third more than women – £37,157 compared to £28,247. There are two reasons for the gap. If you compare people on each pay grade, then for two-thirds of the grades, women on that grade get paid less than men – and also the higher the grade, the higher the proportion of men. At the most senior level, there are seven men for every woman – but even for those women who have reached the very top, they are still being paid less than men in the same position. So there are some real questions for the university to answer …” (more)

[Lynne Featherstone MP, Liberal Conspiracy, 25 February]

“So has John Denham done enough to recover from his retro moment with a Sunday Times journalist who reported that the universities secretary might have a yearning to resurrect polytechnics in his future framework for higher education? The answer has to be yes, judging by his speech to a Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) consultative conference yesterday. This is probably just as well. NUS presidents are too young these days to remember polytechnics, but are unlikely to thank ministers for consigning future generations of students to a gulf of resources and reputation that such a recreation of the binary divide would undoubtedly create. But one has to wonder what half-baked ideas about former polytechnics are swirling around DIUS for such an idea even to see the light of day …” (more)

[Pam Tatlow, Guardian, 25 February]

“I awoke one morning this month confronted with a large, red, black and white poster, clearly designed to alert me to some hysterical cause. Little did I know at that point that it was only one of 4 on my street alone; with 60 others dotted across Cork and Munster – I’ve seen them with my own eyes in Fermoy and Rathcormac. €60,000 has been spent on these posters, apparently; though whose money paid for them remains uncertain. To evoke an immediate emotive response, the billboards prominently feature large images of foetuses in utero, despite UCC’s stem cells looking more like microscopic grey rice. They make a claim of ‘lethal research in UCC’, strong words indeed, more akin to Nazi human experiments than poking needles into lifeless goo …” (more)

[Procrastic Fantastic, 24 February]

“For the past few years we have all known that Ireland has a problem: we need to be a centre of excellence in which research and development and high value investment can find a natural home; but our indigenous population has been turning away from the subjects – at school and university – that could make this vision a reality: science and mathematics. There are a number of issues: the lack of a proper primary science curriculum; totally inadequate science laboratories in secondary schools; the perceived complexity and difficulty of mathematics and science as school subjects; the demanding nature of these subjects at third level; and so forth. As I said, all of this has been known long enough …” (more)

[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 25 February]

“Demand for a place in college next autumn is at record levels. Increasing numbers of Irish students want to pursue a third-level qualification – both at home and in the UK. Latest figures from the CAO show a 6pc rise in interest for university and other third-level institutions. The deadline for CAO applications was February 1, and the most updated data shows the number has reached 67,642. That’s up 3,774 on the equivalent 2008 figure of 63,868, and compares with 61,961 at the same time in 2007. More Irish students are also attracted by the idea of going to Britain for their degree …” (more)

[Katherine Donnelly, Independent, 25 February]

“A professor of mathematics at University College Cork (UCC) has slammed the university’s recent decision to begin embryonic stem cell research. Professor Des McHale, also a well-known author, said that he was ‘deeply ashamed’ that UCC’s governing body had passed the proposal to begin the unethical research and called on students, parents and the general public to make their voices heard against the decision. Professor McHale made his remarks at a packed seminar organized by the pro-life group ‘Youth Defence in University College Cork.’ ‘I am deeply, deeply ashamed of the situation. Not everyone here agrees with it. The vote by the governing council was a tie, passed only by a casting vote by the chairman,’ he said. Youth Defence spokeswoman Íde Nic Mhathúna welcomed Professor McHale’s remarks …” (more)

[LifeSiteNews, 24 February]

“French President Nicolas Sarkozy is under pressure to walk away from plans for a radical shake-up of higher and secondary education after tens of thousands of lecturers, researchers, teachers and students took to the streets in protest. Lectures held in streets and cafes have helped draw attention to a growing list of grievances and win public support. During the past three weeks demonstrations, some violent, have brought classes to a halt across the country, including in Paris, Marseilles and Bordeaux. In Strasbourg, a visit by the Higher Education and Research Minister, Valerie Pecresse saw police occupy the steps of the university’s main building and use tear gas against demonstrators. Teaching stopped at three universities in Toulouse, one in Lyons and most departments in Marseilles. Newspaper reports in Europe said that the ‘unlimited strike action’ had seen some staff at one university in Paris, Paris XIII, on strike for three weeks …” (more)

[The Australian Higher Education, 25 February]

“British universities will have to embrace ‘more flexible ways of learning’ and expand the kinds of degrees they offer, including more opportunities for vocational and part-time study, if they are to meet the demands of employers and students, a senior government official told university vice chancellors today. In a keynote address on the future of higher education, John Denham, the secretary of state for innovation, universities, and skills, said that ‘the future higher-education system will need to ensure greater diversity of methods of study, as well as of qualifications.’ The government remains committed to its target of increasing college-going rates among young people to 50 percent …” (more)

[Aisha Labi, Chronicle of Higher Education, 24 February]

“Children of professionals are 10 times more likely to go to university than the sons or daughters of unskilled workers. New research reveals that just 2.5pc of first year students at university last year came from unskilled backgrounds. By contrast, almost a quarter were from professional backgrounds, a fifth came from employer or managerial backgrounds and 8.7pc were the children of farmers. Children of agricultural workers accounted for only 0.3pc of first year university intake; semi-skilled for 5.1pc; skilled manual for 9.9pc; and non-manual for 9.7pc. The socio-economic intake into the institutes of technology was different, with a higher percentage of children of unskilled workers …” (more)

[John Walshe, Independent, 24 February]

“The number of university students opting for courses in the key areas of combined maths, science and computing declined by 13 per cent last year, according to new figures from the Higher Education Authority (HEA). The figures are likely to spark fresh concern about the relatively small number of students opting for such courses. Last week, the American Chamber of Commerce expressed concern about the skills deficit in technology and related areas. Yesterday, Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe announced details of a new expert group that will examine how his department and the private sector can work more closely to improve technology in the classroom. The HEA figures show that courses in science and engineering were the only ones to register a decline in new students …” (more)

[Seán Flynn, Irish Times, 24 February]

“The Taoiseach recently suggested that the numbers unemployed in Ireland could reach 400,000 by the end of 2009. If this occurs, it will mean that the numbers on the live register will have risen by more than 220,000 from 179,600 in 2008 – an increase of 120 per cent in one year. While the rapidity of this rise is unprecedented, we are still some way off the worst of the 1980s. The unemployment rate for 1986 reached 17 per cent and as recently as 1993 was at 15.5 per cent. Even the most pessimistic projections for the unemployment rate for 2009 fall some way short of these rates. Still, unemployment is now once again likely to emerge as the biggest single economic and social challenge facing Ireland in the coming years. There are some important differences between the current crisis and that of the 1980s. Unemployed people today have far more marketable skills than before …” (more)

[Tom Collins, Irish Times, 24 February]

“The British honours degree system was born 200 years ago. But it is about to die. And that death will be recognised globally as a failure of British higher education. The problem, as was recently acknowledged by Peter Williams, the chief executive of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), is that our system of classed honours is now ‘rotten’ and ‘based on arbitrary and meaningless measures’. Indeed, grade inflation has bubbled latterly at a shameful rate. As recently as 1996, only 45% of graduates achieved a first or a 2:1, but today two-thirds of graduates achieve those grades. On some extrapolations of this exponential trend, within 15 years everybody might graduate with a first-class honours degree. The response of Universities UK, the vice-chancellors’ trade union, to the crisis has been not to address its causes but simply to deny the symptoms: if honours degrees are now rotten, let’s just abolish them …” (more)

[Terence Kealey, Guardian, 24 February]

“Some 15,000 students gathered in Dublin recently to protest against the possible reintroduction of tuition fees for third level courses. They were addressed by student leaders, Opposition politicians and trade union officials, and the mood was clearly strongly opposed to the idea that the free fees scheme introduced in the 1990s should now be reversed. However, many of those present at the protest, when asked by reporters, also expressed the view that the return of fees was now probably inevitable, and what was said inside Leinster House on the same day by the Minister for Education and Science reinforced that impression. We are probably now beyond the point at which this development can be stopped …” (more)

[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, Irish Times, 24 February]

“The Royal Irish Academy has been around since 1795, supporting and advancing research in the sciences and humanities. Its royal charter declared its aims to be ‘the promotion and investigation of the sciences, polite literature, and antiquities.’ It now has 385 ordinary members and 56 honorary members, all of whom have attained distinction in scholarship and research in Ireland. Its core funding comes from the Higher Education Authority and it resides in Academy House in Dublin’s Dawson Street …” (more)

[Irish Times, 24 February]

“Honours maths students will not be awarded bonus points for taking the high level paper in this year’s Leaving Cert exam. Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe has given a comprehensive rebuttal to repeated calls for the subject to get special treatment. Mr O’Keeffe said it would be unfair and counterproductive to single out higher level maths or another subject, in this way. The employers body IBEC argues that bonus points would result in a greater uptake of the subject and ultimately lead more students into careers in new technology and science, where there are skill shortages. They insist that the reintroduction of bonus points, which were removed in 1990s, will offer a short-term solution to the worrying fall in numbers selecting science …” (more)

[Katherine Donnelly, Independent, 23 February]

“John Denham, the innovation, universities and skills secretary, has emerged an adroit player of Whitehall’s current favourite game: deciding what the economy will look like post-recession. In a speech to the Royal Academy of Engineering last week, he told the seven research councils, which between them invest £2.8bn a year on fundamental and applied science, to thrash out with the business community and his officials new ‘priority’ areas for investment. The exercise was ‘too complex’ for government to do alone, he admitted. ‘These are discussions that need to take place between research councils and companies themselves,’ he said. The funding of scientific research is being overhauled and the private sector is being invited to the table. But what a table …” (more)

[Richard Tyler, Daily Telegraph, 23 February]

“Research scientists with egalitarian tendencies toward publication may want to think twice if they also hope to make tenure. A study by a pair of investigators at the University of Chicago has concluded that researchers may find a wider audience if they make their findings available through a fee-based Web site rather than make their work freely available on the Internet. The researchers, who published their findings in the journal Science, say that when a research article is offered online after being in print for one year, the use of an open-source format increases citations to the article by 8 percent. But when a paid-subscription format is used to distribute a year-old print article, the citations increase by 12 percent …” (more)

[Paul Basken, Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 February]

“… The Vice-Chancellors of UK universities are critical of recent increases in international student visa fees, and are worried that the UK will ‘lose out’ in recruiting international students who will be put off by the expense and new immigration procedures. Now surely is the time for Ireland to exploit what could be a gap in the market. International students bring an enormous amount of benefits: financial, academic and cultural. Unfortunately, the visa requirements and fees leave much to be desired here, but if they could be made simpler and cheaper why wouldn’t students come here instead?” (more)

[Summa cum laude, 23 February]