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WE HAVE EVERY right to be angry with the many institutions that seem to be taking advantage of us all. Banks, insurance companies and real estate agencies to name but a few are well-known culprits, but nobody appears to be protesting with the same vigor about the biggest scam of all that is going on right under our noses: the scam of third level education.
As CAO offers come out, older generations will no doubt be lauding the system that has given young people so many choices as to where they go with their futures, but with greater choice comes greater potential for regret leading to higher levels of stress and pressure on the shoulders of young people who are already over-stressed.
The commitment of time alone that is necessary to get through modern education is enough to make any young person’s hairline retreat.
Degrees have lost all value
Long gone are the days when a Leaving Cert or even a Junior Cert could be deemed sufficient qualifications to acquire a decent job. In many cases, due to what is being termed “academic inflation” not even a degree is enough. We have reached a situation where so many level-eight degrees are being handed out every year that they have lost value.
This has led to postgraduate degrees becoming the minimum requirement for positions that undergraduate degrees would have been good enough for ten years ago. Students who undergo Masters and subsequently PhD studies after an undergraduate degree will typically spend nine years in third level education.
Who wins out of this? The third level institutions of course who charge as much, if not more for students to partake in graduate studies, while the teaching hours and resources that are provided to these students are much less than those of undergraduate courses.
How are they getting away with this?
Yes, we offer free education to many students, and no we don’t charge as much as American universities, but people are paying for this education and it is often those who reap no benefits from the system who pay the most.
Vast sums of public money are going towards third level institutions (€1.5 billion annually) and after the Public Account Committee in July likening some colleges approach to financial dealings the “wild west”, it doesn’t appear that the money is in safe hands.
With tuition fees averaging €7000 a year on top of living costs, extortionate rent prices and booze-fuelled social lives, students are forced to work weekends, evenings and holidays, contributing to one of the most commonly cited reasons for dropping out: pressure from part-time work.
That is only the beginning of the scam
After taking so much of our young people’s time and money, it would seem reasonable that these young people would benefit from this investment by finding themselves in positions of employment after graduating. The reality is that this is impossible, there are nowhere near as many new jobs offered in the country every year as there are degrees handed out.
According to the recent census, there are currently 180,076 full-time students in third level education, the economy is growing, but not growing nearly enough to provide jobs for all of these students along with all of those currently on the live register (276, 892).
According to the Higher Education Authority, only 62% of the students who graduated with honors bachelors degrees in 2015 had jobs by the following spring. This is up from the 45% of the devastating year that was 2009, but is still inequitable.
So what do these graduates do when they find themselves outside the college gate, degree in hand, facing the reality that they are unemployable? They have two options: the dole or the airport.
Of course they have no regrets, those college years were the best of their lives: they got to move away from home, have freedom, open their minds, take drugs for the first time, have sex for the first time, learn to cook, learn to write, learn to argue, learn to borrow money, learn to manage their debt, learn to be part of a society that rejects their qualification as not worth the fancy paper it is written on.
So why bother?
What’s the point in going to university at all if it leaves graduates stranded? Well, they aren’t really given a choice. Their parents probably wanted a better life for their children than their own and this provides a symbolic form of offering them opportunities that were denied them.
So at the age of seventeen they are presented with a list of hundreds of courses to choose from, everything from basket-weaving to law, and they have to choose courses that will determine the rest of their lives, cost them a fortune, a decade of study and turn them into a person with the same skills as a whole cohort of other graduates.
They do it because they don’t have a choice, because everyone else is doing it and because their parents make them. Compounding the difficulty of the decision is the reality that the job market will have changed dramatically by the time they graduate.
In 2008, it would have seemed to be a wise decision to enroll in a course in construction management with the construction industry booming and salaries going through the roof. But by the time they graduated the industry had crashed and all their degree would have got them was a flight to Australia. Who is to say that something similar might not happen in other booming sectors like technology and renewable energy?
But do the students care? Sure aren’t they having great craic?
We are teaching too many students to do jobs that our society doesn’t need at a huge cost to both the students and our society. In the coming weeks, students all over the country will be choosing the courses that they have been accepted for through the CAO.
Of these 76,086 students, 14,459 have chosen Arts or Social Sciences as their first preference according to CAO statistics, making it by far the highest first preference field applied for.
Arts courses get a lot of abuse for being the path people choose when they don’t know which to path choose. There is definitely a place for these subjects and many graduates of Arts courses go on to great things, but the reality is that in 2016 study by the Higher Education Authority found that more than one third of Arts and Humanities graduates said that their education was irrelevant/most irrelevant to their employment.
It should be no surprise then that Arts and Humanities graduates are also statistically the least well paid after graduation with 21% of last year’s graduates on less than €13,000. It might be of some solace to these students to know that it actually doesn’t even matter so much what course you apply for, because, according to careeerportal.ie, “60% of graduate opportunities are open to graduates from any field”, so what the hell were they studying specific subjects for then?
Our third level education system is hugely wasteful
We create too many graduates who are destined to drain from society rather than contribute to it, through no fault of their own, making them despondent and resentful towards a system that has let them down.
There is a simple solution that could reduce this waste significantly. Most companies that recruit recent graduates state that they invest substantially in training them in. It makes sense then that the government should invest in subsidising the training that companies give new employees rather than investing in years of useless education.
A percentage of new employees’ tax could cover this, while companies become more efficient and potential employees don’t waste years in third level, learning facts that they are forced to forget once they (if they are lucky) enter the workforce. This would lengthen the average amount of working years of the country’s workforce by harnessing youthful years rather than raising the national retirement age, as has been suggested recently in the Dáil.
We need companies to be recruiting our secondary school students, not universities, young people need to be aware of the jobs that exist, not the courses. We need employers rather than academics training young people to work. Irish people are known for being hardworking, but if the work isn’t there, we lose our skilled youth to foreign countries, who take advantage of their education.
Chris Fitzgerald is a language teacher from Kerry who holds an MA in English Language Teaching and is a current PhD candidate. He has taught in Japanese universities for five years and is currently based in Galway, working in language education in an administrative capacity while writing on the side.
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Agree 100%. In Germany many companies take you on after school. You then combine university with on-the-job training. Students are well paid, learn actual skills required for the area they are interested in, get a degree and have a job in the end. People choose trades over meaningless degrees and start earning earlier in a field where their acquired skills will be needed. Universities here seem to be nothing short of money grabbers.
@Mick: Absolutely, we are still encouraging tons of young people to grab an arts degree that in most cases leads to nothing.
Most degrees are only good to you if you take it up to doctorate level. For instance, a B.sc in Psychology and Archeology is a waste of time and money cos you’re nobody with a B.sc in these two areas.
@Adam Umar Ćhukwù: gender studies degrees are the biggest waste of time
@Mick: true, the system in Germany is much better for society overall. Although I do find it very unfair that students are basically deciding whether or not they want to go to university at 12/13.
Also, education here is considered prestigious. In Ireland when I said I was doing a PhD people almost pity you, in Germany people surprisingly have respect for you. They also don’t refer to it as “being a student” either.
So yeah, Germany basically have it sorted.
@Mick: Accounting Technicians Ireland have a type of apprenticeship model. If you get 320 points in your Leaving Cert, they will get you a work placement where you will work 4 days per week and study one day, and earn around €18k while doing so.
I believe all course and exam fees are paid for by the employer, plus you get decent study leave. It’s a two year course and you get your required work experience complete while studying. The course also leads to good exemptions for other business and accountancy qualifications.
If I was finishing up school, I think this is the route I would take.
@Gareth Fletcher:
Assuming you want to be an accountant.
Let’s hope not many choose this route or the accountants will eat each other.
@Mick: We’ve had students from France and they are doing 5 year degrees. 2 of those years are placed within a company.
For example, one student is studying network / infrastructure. The course was heavy on Cisco and other enterprise systems. They come out the end of the degree with a high level of knowledge and experience in a specific are and walk straight into a job. They dont waste time on outdated 2-4 month modules that you see in IT degrees here.
@gjpb: Young woman I know, good history degree – come out gay – now at big expense wants masters in gender studies. Why – she thinks that media and politics requires that for job opportunities.
Gender politics – It’s all about made marriages, Magdalen homes, abortions in England – basically the victims handbook/hatebook
We all kind of know this for decades now. To add to the worsening situation is the introduction of degrees with “studies” in the title.
Gender studies
Multicultural studies
Gay and LGBT studies et al.
These courses serve just a few individuals, the Professors who have obtained professorship via the back door by researching on muck.
@Adam Umar Ćhukwù: how does continuing knowledge in these areas affect you?
Every time somebody complains about the arts I just figure they’re bitter about something. The humanities are extremely important and valuable, encouraging a country of phillistines isnt exactly progressive either.
I’m not sure those are actual degrees anywhere are they??
That’s all basic part of sociology (which can be used for various practical jobs including marketing and research)
We need to study social issues, how else do you think we conduct research and make advances in social policy?
@Adam Umar Ćhukwù: Oh look, a straight man who thinks LGBT and gender studies don’t have value because it doesn’t directly effect him. Wow, what are the odds.
@Jack Baylor: I think Adam’s point was that, as suggested in the article, these courses will lead to actual gainful employment for a very few. I think it’s a perfectly valid point. Surprise, surprise! As usual, there’ll always be one who just can’t resist inferring some kind of sexism or misogyny in a perfectly innocuous comment though; an attempt to force the conversation around to the only manner of communication progressive types seem to understand.
@Adam Umar Ćhukwù: This is it. There are so many courses that will lead to nothing when you graduate and they are there so the colleges can make money.
My advice to anyone is do accounting, medicine, it, engineering. There are jobs in those fields.
@James Bishop: Yes everyone do those three degrees . Every single student !!! That will work !!!
While I agree that accredited in – house training while in employment is a very good idea for those students who have a clear career path planned for themselves, I would hate to see a situation where education was seen to be only there to serve the needs of private commercial interests. Education should be about broadening the mind, encouraging creativity and curiosity, informing and promoting original thought, developing the person. A society with educated, original thinkers has a lot to offer to employers, but even if those individuals don’t find employment in the areas they studied, the skills and knowledge are transferable and individuals, communities and democracies are the better for having a high standard of education available. Learning is never a waste!
@Noirin Kavanagh: While learning is never a waste, you should be taught all you need to know for the job sector you are aiming for. Now its a broad spectrum, but not in-depth enough.
@Noirin Kavanagh:
If you want to support a family and get a mortgage, learning in certain arreas could be a waste.
Very scare, plz university = job.
@Noirin Kavanagh: “Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.” ~George Carlin
@Noirin Kavanagh: Couldn’t agree more, education should enhance appreciation and understanding. If employers want qualified individuals then the employers should provide the training as it is they who will reap the profits. There’s a subtle difference between education and training but industry would have us duped into believing that they are one and the same type of learning and that the state should churn out students with skills that industry craves while the employer saves on training costs and benefits from the services of employees with less socially enquiring minds.
@Larry Kavanagh: exactly, real education provides thinking and problem solving skills and the ability to see from more than one perspective. Training for a specific job is just that. If education is reduced to that, everyone loses out. People with the ability to think for themselves are often the ones with most to offer.
@Noirin Kavanagh: I’m afraid it can be: doing courses with small demand.
What do you say to someone with an arts degree? No tomato on that burger, please.
There is more to education than getting a job. It opens the mind and teaches people how to think clearly. The authors solution is to deny young people this valuable life experience and turn them into corporate drones. Scary
@John Mullan: I’d like to agree with you John, but if you went to any Irish educational 3rd level institution in last 20 years, you’d see that’s not the case. Classical education in critical thinking is all but gone from our colleges. Thinking clearly has come to mean ‘whatever my lecturer thinks’, and lecturers live in a bubble. Free thinking is stifled nowadays.
In Waterford institute of technology, a debate on mass immigration was called off last year, which would have been great for students, whether for or against. But some snowflakes got offended before the debate even happened.
But Islam day, showcasing repressive hijabs and burqas, was all the rage with school management. Many students and observers were left scratching their heads at why Wahhabi muslims (Saudi) were permitted to have an open day given their countries human rights record, and deeply misogynistic and oppressive religion.
I saw a great poster the other day that summed up Google on the subject.
Google 5 years ago: “Think Different – Get Hired”
Google now: “Think Different? – Get Fired!”
@John Mullan: You seem to wanting to extend the playtime for people. How do you pay your bills with an expanded mind or an ability to clearly think. Get real or do you think everybody has the right to be be carried through life? That said, for years I often worried how many new vets every year V the amount who are taught to be one, the same goes for many professions.
@Good Early:
Thats because the colleges get big money from oil rich nations to educated their kids, happens here in Tralee also with the Royal College of Surgeons.
@Good Early: “Classical education in critical thinking is all but gone from our colleges” And your most recent college experience from which you derive this information from was when, exactly?
“This has lead to…” (from an article written by a guy with an MA in English language teaching)
@Dave Murray: There is plenty of work in English language teaching world wide, particularly well paid too in Asia.
That is actually the correct spelling and grammar for the sentence. The current use of the word “led” is a new format and frowned upon in classical English use. In my days at English grammar schools it would have been a spelling mistake and have seen you put in detention.
@Dave Murray: You were expecting something other than proper English, perhaps?
Great article. Unfortunately we are becoming Americanised, soon u’ll need a mortgage to get ur degrees, win win again for third level institutions, banks, landlords., etc. Just not us.
Education, just another official Ireland lucrative racket.
@Con Murphy: please explain to me how you define your logic here in the US they charge thousands of dollars for one year of college. Never mind the fact that Irish colleges actually have a very good reputation with foreign employers too.
@Nervouswithahandle:
Overpaid professors, managers, layers of beuracracy. Honarary degree for Brian Cowen, need I go on!
The assumption of the article is that university education is about vocational preparation, nothing more. It is a utilitarian perspective. There are other perspectives.
I agree that we need to stop seeing degrees as the only form of 3rd level education. On job training is great for many, however this limits ones options as other companies may not recognise the experience gained. As carpenter of 20 odd years though, I would hesitate to recommend the trades to any youngster as free movement of labour has cut the value of the work.
@Jason Maguire:
The Gov needs to puts its weight behind a proper apprenticeship scheme for all trades in construction industry, to HR pipeline and up-skill a sector very much neglected in this regard through those economy/societal damaging boom bust cycles of recent decades.
Too many quick-buck merchants entered the sector during that era, funded mainly by short-term, cheap and freely available debt finance for their Dev and Blding enterprises, resulting in 2008 catastrophic collapse.
Same sector is now forecasting massive growth for years ahead but is experiencing manpower shortages across the board, all because of brutally poor 360 degree planning at Gov level.
So here’s one prime example of where central message in article is spot on the money, imho.
@Rory J Leonard: that wont be done while all that has to be done when theres a shortfall is put an ad in the Polish papers.
@Jason Maguire: no disrespect intended to anyone who comes here to work, fair play to them, its the policy in questioning.
My son did a 4 yr science degree at ucd and when I heard his theses was going to be on cat communication, I knew job prospects were going to be less than slim.
@Colleen McGovern: if your son picked that thesis subject then it’s his fault, not the education system. He should do a thesis on something relevant and in an area that he wants to obtain gainful employment.. That is unless feline science or similar is his aim then it might not be a bad thesis of course.
@Colleen McGovern: The thesis is part of the overall degree not what defines it. It is an exercise to demonstrate your ability to apply what you have learned in your classes to different problems, and to demonstrate that you are capable of conducting literature research, designing an informed scientific test/ survey and are capable of interpreting the results and presenting them in a legible format. Your son is going to come out of a with a degree in science not a degree in cat communication.
@Colleen McGovern: Funny was only talking about this the other day. A friend said cats only meow to humans.
@Colleen McGovern: Forget the thesis Colleen, if your son did a degree in science (especially if physics, maths, chemistry or IT) is part of his degree then he’ll be very employable. Everywhere from the likes of google, Intel etc to banking/finance.
@Gary: More companies should be going into the schools to scoop them out.
@William Grogan: calling their young, also they give out a singing meow when courting. The list of reasons are more. I have 4 generations of cats at home.
I support the German model and, certainly, technology fields lend themselves to this plan. Trade schools also provide career paths for specific vocations. Unfortunately for vocational schools, society has placed value on being able to say you completed university. The author of the article stated that the older generation supports the idea of university for university’s sake. I disagree. Certain degrees should come with a warning, “Graduate studies required for professional employment”. In the absence of industry supporting fields for employment, the responsibility falls on the parent or the college to provide this guidance.
Arts students; the only thing they’ll be drawing is the dole
The idea of in-company training is happening right now in Ireland, but just in a minority of courses. In NUI Galway all Engineering students (that covers civil, electronic, mechanical, biomedical, computer science etc) complete an eight-month, paid work placement that makes students highly employable before even finishing their degree. These result in the degrees having extremely high employment rates: at least 80% of the class employed in the first six months, and take into consideration the students in that class who would have barely passed exams.
I don’t believe Level 8 degrees are losing their value as much as the author says they are, but the main problem is there are too many people going into arts and not enough going into IT and engineering in this country. Not enough jobs in arts and too many in engineering!
We’re not just an economy, we’re a society. It is important that we foster arts and culture and heritage, even if these endeavours offer little in value to a balance-sheet. That said not everyone should need a degree to work and those who don’t cannot be unemployable. The current rate of qualification inflation is unsustainable and places unnecessary pressures on people pursuing less-than-stellar jobs.
Moving our education system to exclusively serving commercial needs is not something I would like to see.Education should be more than the path to a job
@Robert Woodward: None one said “exclusively”.
Companies are already subsidised enough by, in many cases, externalising the real cost of labour to the state and the family – eg. long term pension provision, housing and healthcare, are all picked up by the state and the family when wages and are so pitiful.
What the state needs to do is directly shape and guide college course outputs with respect to what is actually needed in the economy. Instead of pumping tens of millions of euro into Arts degrees, it should increase the number of doctor training places, Social Work training places, and so on. Things and skills that are actually needed.
Less free market and more central planning.
What a load of tripe….
@john Appleseed:
Care to elaborate?
Agreed. I would suggest that level 7 degrees are now the equivalent of what the leaving cert 20 years ago
Good piece. Just do the opposite of what the experts advise. Train as an architect in 2004 so you can come in to the crash unemployable. Don’t do IT, where the only jobs available were. Buy shares in banks in 2006….Buy a house in 2007 at extortionate prices. Don’t buy a house in 2010 when they were affordable. Great advise yeah! ever get the feeling your being had!
@Radioska:
All the time 24/7!
The joke degree in my day was fish farming in Letterkenny is it was lowest points in 1991
From what I hear anyone who pursued that particular career path are having the last laugh now ……….
Just goes to show …..
@Declan Gill: In my year in ’92 it was fish farming down in Tralee RTC (Tralee I.T now).
Fantastic article and ever more true nowadays.
Same auld bitterness from commentators. Arts/science degrees thst si many of u want to put down highlights a persons commitment and ability to toughh it out fir 3/4 years. Moreover educational attainment is not jus about economics. And jus out of curiosity how many that commented on the post actually have a degree?? If u dont have one u dunno what it takes to get one!!!
@Mondo: Don’t put Arts degree and Science degree in the same sentence.
Yeah leave the younger generation ignorant and uneducated so that big businesses can take advantage of them. Some good points were made but overall it’s just ridiculous. We all are entitled to education from acedemic people. If all that money is not going to be put into the education of young people where is it going to go? The pockets of busines people so they can buy their second jaguar while paying new recruits only €13,000 annually. Sickening.
“According to the recent census, there are currently 180,076 full-time students in third level education, the economy is growing, but not growing nearly enough to provide jobs for all of these students” Beware of language experts use of stats. About 1/4-1/3 of these will be finishing each year so about 45-60K. The economy added over 200K new jobs last year.
@Eamonn Moran: I’d bet a good many of those jobs were minimum wage or zero-hours jobs rather than employment that would appeal to degree graduates..
All potential third level students should spend a year in their selected career path on job sampling. They could receive a workfare payment. Only then should they make a final decision on their third level or apprenticeship choice. Save the exchequer a fortune and the career choice would be based on informed reality and not a pipe dream.
I suppose the author wants to teach in these third level institutions once he had his PHD and in the arts with his language background. Perpetrating the ” scam” as he sees it ?? Well after calling the Universities names I don’t think you will be welcome somehow. Amongst the arts degrees there are degrees in subjects that will be taught in secondary school like maths and languages geography history and so on. There will also be psychology and from that degree you will have people who go in to b psychologist and deal with children with special needs or behaviour issues adult counselling and occupational psychology for industry. Yes a masters and or a PhD is required but that seems only right if you are to be teaching or lecturing or dealing with a subject matter that has vast quantities of knowledge or lots of different Sun areas. The options aren’t as limited as the author suggests. The degree is a pathway to employment. It shows an employer that a person is capable of a certain level of thinking and analysis and has discipline. Also teaching fetac level courses does not require a masters only a degree for the most part for some subjects but this is probably too lowly to be on the authors radar. I don’t believe the government should be subsiding companies for training and if they do will an 18 year be locked into one specific company as a result ??? That’s not a good idea and leads to lower pay levels.
@Veronica: I totally agree even though our country has a huge history of arts and our culture is heavily influenced by it, we’ve thrown it too the side and people who pursue it are looked down upon. When we look back at history we talk about philosophers in Greece and other countries but people just seem to think it’s an open and close chapter even though it’s constantly evolving
Philistine. Education has no connection to the jobs market. Ireland recognises that a diversely educated population is more valuable to the nation than encouraging young people to chase economic trends. A degree has never led to a job unless it’s a profession. Nor should it unless we want a nation of navel gazers.
The world is full of educated derelicts
@Chemical Brothers:
Takes all types, the world should not be one size fits all.
Get a trade ,Two things you need to know about Plumbing sh** flows downhill,and payday is Friday.
I believe everyone should have choice ,its non of your business what students decide to study ,we live in a free society .you mention IT and wind technology ,jobs that might not be there in the future ,that may be the case but you dont really know .What we need is the cold hard facts of of where and what skills will be in demand ,make it compulsory that every student taking 3rd level education is aware of what he can expect after graduation ,I do agree that private enterprise should be incentivised to train employees ,modern apprenticeship need to be honed to a fine art ,transferable skills also have a real value which has been undervalued by all sectors of the economy .young people want stable well paid jobs not a life on the dole or the employment roller coaster .education needs a new long term plan ,it is a must for any successful economy
It is not the role of Universities (or Institutes of Technology) to be training houses for companies.
Education is, and always should be, about learning.
Companies have slashed their training budgets and now expect graduates to
A/ Be trained when leaving college
or
B/ Be happy to take unpaid labour (sorry internships)
Yes higher education leads to better paying jobs but that is not the primary function of the educators
Third level institutions in Ireland have increasingly and stealthily become pseudo businesses with both eyes firmly on expanding the bottom line in order to benefit the status and pockets of some. Education has become secondary in the whole process. The expansion, in the last 25 yrs, of third level to the regions has been a huge boon, opening up educational opportunities to all, but there is no overarching body there to oversee its controlled development. Big business has become very influential, lots of it good: some not so good. The more influence business wields, the less accountable the Dept. of Education and the institutions themselves become. The privatisation of Irish education has begun. This is Govt policy.
I know a guy who has a PHD in english and works in supervalu.
Some of these courses are a waste of time and money,just there so the slightly less thick can remain in school. HAPPY DAYS.
@Pat Troy: more trade courses needed
Not too mention with automation & AI coming sooner rather than later these jobs will not be there in years to come
In France there are Technical universities, there are ‘professional’ schools teaching trades, there are of course universities and the Grand Ecoles. Students are streamed pretty early and can continue their education and training in the ‘professional’ schools, taking a BAC….waiters, cooks, hairdressers, beauticians, butchers, bakers, plumbers, electricians and do on. There are people attending Universities who are unsuited academically. We need people who are properly trained in the trades, what is wrong with that? We need more doctors, physiotherapists, nurses other medical professionals.
The first degrees should be of such a quality that extended degrees and PhDs are not de rigour, in order to get a good job or learn on the job. I am not sure that 3rd level broadens all minds. I recall being on a train when a really bright boy (accepted by Cambridge that morning for Medicine) started commenting on the ice hotels in Sweden, he was mocked by the other students, I looked around and though I was in a H Bosch
Scenario of dullards, they all looked ignorant and obtuse. This boy had so many interests, he nurtured curiosity. he came from, as he described, an ordinary family. University was getting a well rounded person, not creating one, if that’s possible.
@helen walsh: should have added, after mentioning the medical professions..this is where universities come in
Brilliant article, captures the issue perfectly. I was in Cork there last week and overheard to ladies talking about the need to do a PhD and they were working out the cheapest way to do it for free – going so far as to say their friend joined the army so that “he could do it for free”! A lot of value is lost by people who do not follow up on the topic of their chosen research just to have a PhD.
@Ryan Carroll: I’m sorry but some of the drivel that is thought in these pseudoscienctific courses are actually quite regressive to the country! Further dividing minority groups in the process
So create jobs in arts, art it’s important as any other industry out there
Article headed teaching for students but no job at the end so why not tell us what courses they should pursue or how to approach study..no answer no marks for you here…
So, the old debate about education vs training raises its head, again.
While I agree with a lot of the piece, it takes a very economistic perspective where the neoliberal conception of third level education ie servicing industry with market logic dictating every aspect from access to industry demands and earning potential etc That means even if we agree to the author’s proposed reforms down the line this internal logic is gonna come into conflict or crisis with itself.
Planned economy- that’s the solution to the current conjuncture anything else is gullible or vulgar belief in the ordo/neo-liberal trajectory we are on.
Chris Fitzgerald’s solution, as outlined in the above article, is definitely worth considering seriously!
You can’t rock the boat – too many lecturers and institutions on the band-wagon.
Some degrees are not worth the paper they are printed on. As in secondary schools, subjects, most of which are irrelevant to the real world are taught year after year by teachers who don’t give a dam. At least universities and colleges should be consulting with industries and businesses to ascertain what skills and qualifications are sought.
We are depending on immigration for skilled workers when we should be producing them ourselves.
What ever happened to the straightforward “to take part in”, as opposed to “partake in” which has a completely different meaning. Maybe the pretentious “to partake in” which used to be bad grammar is now the norm:-(
@245hkJ01: Yeah, I remember a simpler time when governments made tough decisions; these days it seems to be all about taking the tough decisions. When was that decided?
There is one issue that the article didn’t touch on and it’s one of the biggest piss takes. you have just finished four years of your Bsc. In your chosen area and is ready for employment, you apply for countless jobs. only to be rejected because you don’t have sufficient experience. How is one able to get experience if no employer is willing to take on undergraduates/postgraduate. There really needs to be an apprenticeship style of education.
Been an Irish Carpenter living in the US for the past 15 years it is highly noticeable that we are close to the last of a generation of tradesmen. Very few to be had 100 k a year can be made as Carpenter even more for electrical and plumbing and it seems back in ireland these days that these jobs are beyond us .where is the encouragement for students who have a natural aptitude for the trades or should we tell them that most of them are capable of been neuro scientists ,tech engineers barristers or doctors when some of them can neither afford or frankly have the ability to be either. Stop kidding our kids and if they are going to college give them some sort of training in a trade that they may fall back on should everything else not work out .common sense
Not sure if I failed education or if it failed me. My old mum used to parrot “no education is wasted.” I believe most if not all was a waste of time. In my late 20s I made a self diagnosis of “professional misfit.” I explained to a potential employer that I wasn’t very good at any one thing but I was “a bit good” at a few things. Amazingly he took me on and, thankfully, failed to say, “and tell me, what are the things you’re a bit good at?” If such an area of study had been available, I should have undertaken a “combination” course in emotional intelligence, (good) mental health, basic practical skills, survival/self defence and…digger driving. Now that little lot might have set me up for life.
It all depends on what you are aiming for, a big big advantage is if you know the area you would like to study and ultimately work in. Its not all doom and gloom, DIT and DCU for example in many of the science subjects (and in science subjects they tend to be orientated towards work) have final year placements etc On most of the courses in their course is a section on employment and areas for further study etc etc. But most arts courses are just that and nothing more. For example the NCAD take a high percentage of Leaving Cert students yet the IADT takes a higher persentage of mature students. But a lot of third level institutions are just as chaotic as first year students.
All the real jobs were given to China?
http://web.archive.org/web/20120711071849/http://www.gaa.ie/gaa-news-and-videos/daily-news/1/0607121657-croke-parkto-host-asia-pacific-ireland-business-forum/
https://web.archive.org/web/20170705024837/https://www.dfa.ie/news-and-media/speeches/speeches-archive/2015/july/min-urges-businesses-to-seek-asia-opportunities/
@Ronan Sexton: Think he was referring to the use of lead rather than led from somebody with a MA in english
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