Ninth Level Ireland

“Elite schools and the middle classes are tightening their grip on top universities, defying years of government attempts to curb their dominance, according to evidence presented to inquiries ordered by Lord Mandelson. The Sutton Trust, a social mobility charity favoured by Gordon Brown, has blamed ‘stark inequalities’ in standards between comprehensives, grammar and independent schools for hindering change …” (more)

[Jack Grimston, Sunday Times, 31 January]

“Sir – Peter Sutherland is certainly ambitious for his Alma Mater and would like to see UCD and Trinity merge ‘to create a top-10 uni’ (Sunday Independent, January 24, 2010). But at whose expense? Obviously at the expense of the other five regional universities …” (more)

[Bernard O'Grady, Independent, 31 January]

“Former RTÉ economics journalist turned Fine Gael TD George Lee has, berated the public service for what he called ‘fiscal illiteracy’. Astonishingly, out of 19,000 civil servants, only three officials with economics PhDs could be identified in the entire service …” (more)

[John Drennan, Sunday Independent, 31 January]

“The UK Border Agency has temporarily suspended student visa applications from northern India, Nepal and Bangladesh after a jump in numbers. In the last three months of last year, there were 13,500 applications from northern India alone, compared with 1,800 in the same period of 2008 …” (more)

[BBC News, 30 January]

“Is the editorial board at the National Post made up of a bunch of sexist, ‘ill-informed jackasses’? That is what is being argued from the sidelines of social media—blogs, Twitter, Facebook, [insert latest online soapbox here]. The chorus of anger is in response to Tuesday’s editorial in the Post called ‘Women Studies is Still With Us’. The column begins by outlining the news element: there have been reports that women studies programs are disappearing from Canadian campuses, they say …” (more)

[Erin Millar, on campus, 29 January]

“Like aggressive stereotypes of any profession, the idea of academics having a leisurely four hour week is grotesquely misplaced.” (tweet)

[Liam Delaney, Twitter, 30 January]

“… This bizarre and essentially evidence-free assertion raises the use of ‘anecdata’ to drive policy changes to a whole new level of, well, words fail me … Well, there are lots of people who earn vast sums for little work. Footballers clearly only play football on Saturday afternoons; Formula one drivers when they driving in races; TDs only work when they are speaking or voting in the Dail …” (more)

[Shane O'Mara, Irishscience, 30 January]

“Climate change deniers are ‘winning the propaganda war’ at present, one of the Ireland’s best-known experts on global warming has admitted. Prof John Sweeney, director of the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Unit (Icarus) at NUI Maynooth, acknowledged that scientists were ‘lousy’ at communicating their ideas to the general public …” (more)

[Ronan McGreevy, Irish Times, 30 January]

“… College graduates are among those most nervous about the job market. We were told that we needed higher education. And we were promised that, if we got it, good jobs awaited. Yet, soon-to-be alumni are now wondering if their investment was worth it. Debt that soars in the tens of thousands of dollars is a massive burden …” (more)

[Dave Beitzel, The Pitt News, 29 January]

“RT @arusbridger: Saying you don’t need newspapers is like saying you don’t need universities (Lee Bollinger) <= careful, we might lose both” (tweet)

[Eoin O'Dell, Twitter, 30 January]

“For the first time in more than 10 years of using mobile email services, my phone has no mail sitting unread or unanswered. The screenshot is proof. I needed some help getting to this historic juncture, starting with my late conversion to IMAP services. I had resisted moving from POP to IMAP because I knew I would lose some mail and that happened four days ago …” (more)

[Bernie Goldbach, Inside View, 30 January]

“Many many years ago, when I was a student in Dublin in the College-that-cannot-be-named, I spent a year living in university accommodation. I must confess that this was not a life of luxury. I shared what I suppose you might call an apartment with one other student: we had a living room and a kitchen, and each of us had a bedroom …” (more)

[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 30 January]

“The Irish Times and other media today carried a report on the publication of a new globalisation index produced by Ernst & Young which places Ireland third on the globalised states list. The EY index joins an increasingly crowded field, so what follows is a bluffer’s guide to globalisation indices. As always, a good starting point (but never more than that) is the relevant Wikipedia entry …” (more)

[Alan Matthews, The Irish Economy, 30 January]

“If you have a brother or sister, you might be familiar with the scenario of arriving at school only to find them having seven bells knocked out of them in the playground. You might remember the sinking feeling of knowing­ you are duty-bound to step in and stick up for them, even if you don’t like them very much. Imagine that feeling transferred to adulthood, but with the added option of drink, drugs and rock and roll …” (more)

[Hazel Davis, Guardian, 30 January]

“Whether we are attempting to explain a technical concept to a group of students, convince our colleagues of a way to simplify departmental procedures, or persuade our spouses to take out the garbage, most of us instinctively adjust the language and content of our messages to our audiences …” (more)

[Mary W Walters, Inside Higher Ed, 30 January]

“… I am not sure that keeping the methodology is a good idea but it is understandable. However, even with the same basic methods there are a couple of minor changes that might help QS find a niche in the ‘holistic’ ranking market as Times Higher appears to focus on making fine distinctions among leading research institutions …” (more)

[University Ranking Watch, 30 January]

“Sector should put ‘its neck on the line’ and take the question on, former government adviser argues. Universities should not leave it to others to convince the public of the case for higher tuition fees, the sector has been warned …” (more)

[Melanie Newman, Times Higher Education, 30 January]

“Some academics are spending as little as four hours teaching but must start sharing their expertise with students, Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe has claimed …” (more)

[Niall Murray, Irish Examiner, 30 January]

“The money for the €1.1m residence for the president of the University of Limerick (UL) was provided by the group backed by Irish-American billionaire Chuck Feeney. Atlantic Philanthropies has poured €1bn into education, health and other social projects in Ireland — two-thirds of it to third-level institutions …” (more)

[Katherine Donnelly and others, Independent, 30 January]

“Madam, – On April 18th, 1967, the then minister for education, Donough O’Malley, without any advance notice or debate, announced the government’s cabinet decision to dissolve the National University of Ireland and to merge Trinity and UCD, ‘to remove’ he said, ‘the insidious partition which divides our capital city’ …” (more)

[John Kely, Irish Times, 30 January]