Ninth Level Ireland

“As we build up towards next June’s Symposium we’ll be running a number of occasional posts on the theme of ‘creativity’. To kick the series off, where better to start than with one of the most prevalent myths, that of the ‘mad genius’? In a paper published in May’s edition of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, Judith Schlesinger (psychologist and Jazz afficionado – there seems to be a distinct subgroup of such people) exposes the weaknesses of this idea by tracing back recurring references to their original source …” (more)

[Summa cum laude, 29 July]

“Minister for Education and Science, Batt O’Keeffe, TD, today announced details of the student maintenance grant schemes for the coming academic year. The income limit to qualify for the full standard rate maintenance grant and payment of the student services charge, where there are fewer than four dependent children, has now been increased from €39,760 to €41,110. Parents or guardians with fewer than four dependent children can earn up to €51,380 without having to pay the student services charge …” (more)

[BreakingNews.ie, 29 July]

“Universities have started to stockpile disposable rubber gloves and soap powder in case there are multiple outbreaks of swine flu on campuses this September, it emerged yesterday. The news came as the government advised nurseries to remove soft toys and discourage children from sharing crayons and musical instruments to stop the spread of the virus. University managers met yesterday to plan for the worst-case scenario of hundreds of students and staff off sick with the H1N1 virus at the start of the new term …” (more)

[Jessica Shepherd, Guardian, 29 July]

“Enterprise Ireland (EI) spent almost €1.6m on executive training courses in the US and Dubai during 2008, despite the existence of similar courses in Ireland, according to figures seen by the Sunday Tribune. The courses are arranged under EI’s Leadership­4Growth programme …” (more)

[Ken Griffin, Sunday Tribune, 26 July]

“University College Cork (UCC) has entered into exclusive negotiations likely to result in the merger of the Dublin-based Irish Management Institute with the university. Last night UCC confirmed that discussions at the highest level have started with the goal being the merger of the two bodies. Full details of the talks are due to be announced later today …” (more)

[Brian O’Mahony, Irish Examiner, 29 July]

“Families will be faced with a €100,000 bill for educating each child from primary school to third-level graduation, according to new figures. They show that parents pay €12,000 for their children’s eight years in primary school, while six years in post primary costs them more than €13,000 and four years in college almost €42,000 …” (more)

[John Walshe, Independent, 28 July]

“The following interview with Ruairi Quinn TD, Labour Party front bench spokesperson on education and science, was conducted on July 27, 2009, by Ferdinand von Prondzynski.
FvP: Can I ask you first about your general perspective on education at this point? What are your priorities right now, and the priorities of your party? …” (more)

[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 29 July]

“It was sometime in the 1980s, I think, that a basic transformation of the aims of literary criticism was complete. Not the spread of political themes and identity preoccupations, which struck outsiders and off-campus critics like William Bennett, a former secretary of education turned radio host, as the obvious change, but a deeper adjustment in the basic conception of what criticism does. It was, namely, the shift from criticism-as-explanation to criticism-as-performance. Instead of thinking of scholarship as the explication of the object—what a poem means or a painting represents—humanists cast criticism as an interpretative act, an analytical eye in process …” (more)

[Mark Bauerlein, Chronicle Review, 20 July]

“Hundreds of free college training places will be offered from this morning to people who have lost their jobs. But Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) said last night that it has already had 40 applications for its 124 places. The Institute of Technology Tralee (ITT) is also offering 139 places, University of Limerick (UL) will offer 130 free part-time undergraduate college places and Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) will offer 90 places …” (more)

[Eoin English, Irish Examiner, 29 July]

“The publication of a survey which shows parents can spend up to €100,000 for educating each child is proof that the Irish education system is already very heavily reliant on the goodwill of parents. It also shows how unfair it would be to impose €20,000 or €30,000 on families if third level fees are to be reintroduced …” (more)

[Senator Phil Prendergast, Labour Party Blog, 28 July]

“Mergers between Australian and British universities could prove to be a winning formula as they struggle to survive in an increasingly competitive global market, a top British lawyer has told the HES. Glynne Stanfield, a partner and head of international education at Eversheds, a leading international law firm and legal adviser to University College London when it established a campus in Adelaide late last year, said there was nothing under British law to stop such a merger …” (more)

[Aban Contractor, Australian Higher Education, 29 July]

“The greatest domestic rebellion of Tony Blair’s leadership came over his university top-up fee plan. Labour MPs thought it would throttle the hopes of poor youngsters, and they came close to destroying their boss – in the end, however, he was saved by ‘a nod and a wink’. The rebels’ leader, Nick Brown, used the phrase to relay a signal from his close friend and namesake, the then chancellor, that he would keep a lid on the fees. Five years on, one Brown is prime minister, the other one is his chief whip and top-up fees are up for review. This time, the nods and winks are coming from Peter Mandelson – and his words this week about facing up to the costs of education are being read as a sure sign that a steep rise in fees is on the way …” (more)

[Editorial, Guardian, 29 July]

“According to John Willett and Judith Singer, educational researchers studying student dropout and teacher attrition typically ask whether specific events occur by particular points in time. In their article ‘From Whether to When …’ (rotate clockwise to read), these authors argue that a more powerful and informative way of framing such questions is to ask when the transitions occur …” (more)

[Geary Behavioural Economics Blog, 28 July]

“… Over the last year there was something of a mini-rash of alleged plagiarism cases at my institution. These were difficult to deal with, partly because the institution in question, like most of its counterparts in Ireland, does not have a well thought-through set of policies and procedures, which makes it rather exposed to even the idea of legal challenges; but also because any consensus that may have existed in relation to what plagiarism might be has become increasingly fragile in a world that is saturated with practices of re-use and re-purposing of intellectual property. It is no longer clear as to what it means to re-use another’s material and whether this is a good or a bad thing …” (more)

[Perry Share, University Blog, 27 July]

“Fears are growing that swine flu could be spreading at Ireland’s biggest university. University College Dublin (UCD) last night confirmed a small number of foreign students are feared to have contracted the virus in recent weeks. It follows the confirmation last week that a student union official from Co Waterford had contracted swine flu. A spokesperson confirmed up to three others from the UCD community of staff have also reported symptoms of the flu …” (more)

[Eilish O'Regan, Independent, 28 July]

“The Government is to invest €65,000 in Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) to help the college develop services aimed at getting more students from disadvantaged areas into third-level education, according to the Minister for Education and Science, Batt O’Keeffe. Minister O’Keeffe said, ‘I’m delighted that CIT is to get this €65,000 cash injection which can be used to develop innovative projects that get more of our young people from disadvantaged communities into college …’” (more)

[CorkPolitics.ie, 27 July]

“For students at City University London there is no shortage of information about how not to plagiarise. Search for ‘plagiarism’ on the university’s website and about 270 results appear – including a four-minute video called Understanding Plagiarism and How to Avoid it. Elsewhere on the same site, students are warned that they risk being kicked out of the university should they be caught stealing the work of someone else. This is a university that takes plagiarism very seriously. All of which might be bad news for one of its lecturers …” (more)

[Conn Corrigan, Guardian, 28 July]

“In 1978 I finished my studies in Trinity College Dublin and went off to Cambridge to do a PhD. By the early 1980s I had returned to Ireland and began my academic career as Lecturer in Industrial Relations in TCD. In the mid-1980s, together with a former fellow-student, I briefly contemplated organising a class reunion from our Trinity days; we gave up when we discovered that, of the 45 or so students who had graduated together, only five were definitely still in Ireland. It wasn’t that unusual. That was how it was back then. Of course the excitements of the Celtic Tiger brought a good few of these graduates back home, and young people in the later 1990s and since have stayed in much greater numbers. Or have they? …” (more)

[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 27 July]

“The government today gave its strongest indication yet that it wants university tuition fees in England to increase. The business secretary Lord Mandelson told university leaders he would not pre-empt a review this autumn into whether fees, capped at £3,225 a year for students starting in October, should rise. But Mandelson, whose department is in charge of universities, told vice-chancellors that excellence in higher education was ‘not cheap’ and the country ‘had to face up to the challenge of paying for excellence’ …” (more)

[Jessica Shepherd, Guardian, 27 July]

“A new brain drain could be looming after new figures showed a sharp rise in the number of third-level students going to college abroad. A startling jump in the numbers of Irish undergraduate and post-graduate students at college elsewhere in Europe is revealed in a new EU education report. The extent of the economic downturn in Ireland makes it difficult for graduates to return to a job at home …” (more)

[Katherine Donnelly and Paddy Clancy, Independent, 27 July]