The knowledge economy

http://www.projectmaths.ie/about_projectmaths

“t is a problem for which there are no quick fixes, but which could be solved given time, willingness to change, and attention to detail. Which makes it a nice metaphor for the Irish economy more generally.”

No votes in it tho Kevin. So in 40 years time our successors will be bewailing the same problems.

Brian, The move to private schools has made the position much worse. Those in positions of power no longer depend on the local school as their children attend private secondary schools. No wonder the subsidies are not withdrawn from them. No longer paying the salaries of teachers in private schools would provide an additional €100m to be spent on improving standards.

However, standards in the vast majority of schools are of no interest to those who do not depend on them. The reduction in the number of teachers in September will also seriously reduce choice in many of the smaller voluntary secondaries, leaving for example higher & ordinary level maths classes together.

It seems that the government and the universities need to look at the possible incentives to get student to take certain subject. Similar to, the increased points of Maths in the past or perhaps, on the university side reduced or subsidized fees for degrees associated with higher level maths or physics.

There are two issues:
1. It is a rather blunt instrument and could not and should not be used for micro level tweaks, i.e., you get an extra 10 points if you have honours Maths and study Accouting but get an extra 40 points if you have honours Maths and study Bio-engineering.

2. It would be have for politicians not to interfere and look to have higher points for their pet or constituencies issues.

All in all, it would send out a message that Ireland is looking to reward certain behaviours and incent studying for certain outcomes.

@Darren
We used to have double points for honours math back in the day.
And , in a fee paying environment, who will take up the slack from reduced fees for say engineering?
would it not be better to have better provision at first and second level?

It is somewhat inaccurate to say that “mathematical literacy is poor in Ireland”. It would be more accurate to say that it is average, or slightly above average. In the 2006 PISA tests, Ireland ranked 11th in the EU27 for mathematical literacy. Ireland’s average score for mathematical literacy was slightly above the OECD averages for both boys and girls. However, the performance was not as good as for reading literacy, in which Ireland ranked second in the EU27 in PISA 2006, or for science literacy, in which Ireland’s average score was well above the OECD average in PISA 2006.
http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/other_releases/2007/progress2007/measuringirelandsprogress.pdf

PISA measures mathematical literacy at 15. College lecturers criticise mathematical literacy at 18. It’s pretty much common ground between interested groups that there is a serious problem. Where people part company is on what to do about it.

Project Maths is, at best, the solution and, at worst, a worthy attempt to bring “time, willingness to change, and attention to detail” to tackling the issue.

@Niall
I send my children to a private fee paying school. I am also a tax payer, surely I am entitled to have the state to pay the same amount of money on my child’s education as any other. I happen to have decided to supplement what the state spends as I believe it helps my children’s education. Others disagree but it is a spending choice I have decided to make. While there are undoubtedly very wealthy parents in the school my children attend there are also a lot of ordinary middle class people who make sacrifices in other areas to pay for their children to go to the school.

Remove the subsidy and I doubt you’ll have a €100m as a large number of parents will have to switch to the state sector.

PS My son is sitting the Leaving Cert and doing honours Maths and Physics and plans to do engineering. The problem is honours math is seriously hard (as one who did it myself) and takes a huge amount of effort. The easy choice is do something else.

One advantage that the Irish system has is a strong curriculum — Honours maths is a very difficult course, as Stuart says, and in fact the Leaving Cert in general at honours level is one of the more rigorous sets of exams out there. That teaching standards don’t always match it and that students don’t always pursue the harder options are problems, but the material is sound and the standard is challenging. School-leavers in the US don’t have thirty hours of written exams — they take multiple-choice tests and write an essay about how special they are and what extra-curricular activities they do.

Stuart: I don’t agree with you. There are a variety of different reasons why the role of private education should not be subsidised.

I sit on the Board of Management of a voluntary secondary, which must by statute accept all applicants, whether academically suitable or not. The so called private sector does not. Why should the State subsidise what as you admit are effectively private businesses? If they are better, then they should be happy to compete on that basis alone?

The payment of the salaries is just one of many problems in the kid glove treatment of the privileged. The use of “charitable” status for these divisive institutions is also a major problem. The enactment of the Charities Act should see the removal of status from them, however I think we will be waiting a long time for the required Regulations to bring it into effect.

In reality, Irish private schools can be best described as Protestants hiding behind religion to protect privilege and the Jesuits hiding the Protestants.

The mixing of higher and ordinary classes is a serious problem, which will get much worse from September as serious cuts are imposed on the majority to continue to subsidise the priviliged minority.

Private schools are also a very localised problem – Dublin & surrounding counties. Outside of Dublin and perhaps Cork, the local school, really is the local school.

I accept that you have a choice, but there is absolutely no reason why your choice should be subsidised.

Finally, may I wish your son the best in his forthcoming exams.

Is it the math syllabus, the teaching, the end exam, third-level course structures or an unidentified socio-economic issue that is (are) problematical? Perhaps its a confounding mix of all. It will be a brave, or foolish, person who will assert an answer.

The number of abstract thinkers (as opposed to concrete) is low, approx 15% of the cohort, so you will only get a small number of highly capable pupils anyway. Its the second tier that should be the target of any reform – those pupils that have, or could acquire, mathematical skills at the appropriate level. Just how many of these do we actually need as replacements? 100, 200, ??? per annum.

This leaves the lower tiers. Pupils who can do sums, but have difficulty with the processes of problem solving, particularly if the problem is presented in text only form (no numbers). Could you teach quantitative problem solving? Perhaps there may be a problem with both the content and teaching of maths at third-level which carries over to the teaching at second level.

Statistics is an essential mathematical subject and should be taught at both Inter and Leaving cert levels. NOT theoretical stats, but Quick-and-Dirty quantitative stats – the stats of reality.

There should be different types of maths courses – pure maths like the existing leaving cert hons course, and applied maths. This latter course programme would have to be a mix of sums, data table preparation, graphical preparation and analysis and ‘baby’ stats – all in the context of real, actual problems. The lower tiers are not ‘math dumb’ – they are just different.

Oh! I almost forgot. The Exponential Function!!!

In framing any reform of a leaving cert programme it is essential to consider the political aspect. Treat this as you would an un-exploded mine. Next you have to get around the bureaucracy – very time consuming. Then it is curriculum time. Now you have to deal with the third-level academics – all have different agendas. The whole business is a Mares Nest. As presently configured the situation is set in military-grade concrete. Walk away!

Brian P

@Niall
Two taxpayers – both earn €70k. One decides to send their child to a state school and get the state subsidy, one decides to send their child to a fee paying school and under your argument does not. The one who uses the state system ends up with the higher disposable income in my example, lives in a better house, drives a better car and goes on better holidays. It’s about choice.

All I want is the same amount to be spent on my child as any other child in the state. Remove the charitable status, sort out the schools that discriminate on academic ability etc but as a taxpayer I surely have a right to some contribution from the state to my child’s education. I happen to believe that education is very important and am prepared to invest in it. Seems strange to punish me for it.

Presumably if people were forced into the state system by making fee paying schools less affordable they would just spend the money on grinds instead.

And kudos for your involvement in the voluntary sector, I’m sure it is challenging. But I suspect those challenges would not go away if the private sector vanished overnight.

@ Niall

I’m fairly undecided on the issue you and Stuart are discussing, but I do have a problem with some of the economics in your post.

“Why should the State subsidise what as you admit are effectively private businesses? If they are better, then they should be happy to compete on that basis alone?”

In order to compete ‘on that basis alone’, they cannot be expected to contend with competitors who are subsidised. I.e. if competition is what we want, then either both get the subsidy or neither get it.

Incidentally, one might like to think of this as a Friedman-type voucher system. Everyone gets (roughly) the same educational support from the state and may add to this if they like.

Of course a problem arises in the form of inter-generational transfer of socio-economic status then though… Which is where I get a little stuck. Nobody wants kids from low-income families to get fewer opportunities, but limiting the power of mid to high-income parents to invest in their kids wouldn’t quite feel right either…

Kevin, the Irish Independent article says that “This year 10,533 students — only 19pc of Leaving Certificate candidates — are entered for maths at higher level, a drop from over 20pc last year and below the Government target of 20-25pc. The proportion of candidates taking physics is down from 13.8pc to 12.9pc, and chemistry is static.”

I’d wager that this could well be do with the denominator (more students taking the Leaving Cert) – than the numerator. Secondary school drop-outs are not distributed evenly according to ability, and the dropout rate has decreased over the last 20 years. So an increase in aggregate achievement will come at the expense of the average.

Anyway, as a far better economic historian than myself, I’m sure you’ll appreciate that growth in educational attainment is finite. Almost every Irish child should get around 4 hours of mathematics instruction, 30-odd weeks a year for 12 years before they reach the age of 16. Which is a vast improvement on 40 or 80 years ago, and is pretty much the upper limit in terms of how far you can go. Whether this teaching has much effect is down to a mixture of aptitude, interest and parental support. What further the state can provide is moot.

@Con: “It’s pretty much common ground between interested groups that there is a serious problem.”

I’m not sure who the “interested groups” are, but perhaps they are the producers in the mathematics industry. And perhaps, like General Motors, they are finding that the consumers, the students, do not want their products, or don’t want as much product as the producer wants to sell.

Allocating extra “points” is like a BOGOF offer, of interest only if the consumer wants more maths at third level. Telling the punters that maths is good for them, or that national policy requires that they consume more of it, didn’t work for Irish and is unlikely to work for maths.

The product has to be redesigned so that it meets needs that make sense to the potential consumers; the sales force has to show the punters that consumption of maths will reach the parts that other subjects cannot reach.

Some years ago I went to the trouble of buying a copy of every single Junior Cert textbook. A more boring collection of dead trees I have rarely seen. None of them gave the reader any reason to believe that it would be either useful or interesting to spend any time on this stuff.

Project Maths, after a quick look, seems to be going in the right direction, but it seems to be designed from the inside out: it seems to be producer-focused rather than consumer-focused. For instance, in the Junior Cert syllabus document, “In each strand, at every syllabus level, emphasis should be placed on appropriate contexts and applications of mathematics so that students can appreciate its relevance to their current and future lives. The focus should be on students understanding the concepts involved, building from the concrete to the abstract and from the informal to the formal.”

I see three problems with that. First, the remainder of the document says nothing about the contexts and applications, which suggests that the syllabus designers either don’t know what the possible applications are or, more likely, don’t really think they’re very important. Second, it gives little help to any maths teachers who, perhaps with limited experience outside various classrooms, don’t themselves know much about the real-world applications. Third, the abstract and the formal are seen as the end points, the goal, but I suggest that for the vast majority of students maths will be useful and interesting only if the formal and the abstract are intermediate stages on the way to re-applying their new understandings back to the real world. That real world is not just a source of explanatory examples: it is the arena in which new understandings have to justify themselves. That may not be what third-level teachers want, but why should their needs override those of the consumers?

bjg

@Stuart

Sorry to interfere in your debate with Niall, but if I may:

I disagree with your core arguement that spending supplements on education is a rational spending choice out of discretionary income on teh part of the parents. This is from the point of view of the parents, but education is about the point of view of the social function of the next generation.

The way to look at it is this: Your kids did nothing in their (short) lives to merit a better education than the kids of parents who chose to spend that money on cigarettes, slot machines and bloody marys.

In other words, primary and secondary education is about fulfilling a social function and ensuring equality of opportunity. The State can do nothing to compensate some of the more outlandish differences between parents, but it can at least attempt to ensure that the educaiton system does as much as possible to level the playing field for the next generation.

Your kids are not a personal spending choice. They are our common future.

Kevin,

At the ESRI Labour Market Conference last week, Philip O’Connell discussed how the educational profile of unemployed males has evolved such that the biggest increases (between 2006 and 2008) in unemployment for males
occur for those with Leaving Certificate and PLC qualifications. In
a recent New York Times interview with Obama (, here, ), the U.S. President states that “I
think the big challenge that we’ve got on education is making sure
that from kindergarten or prekindergarten through your 14th or 15th
year of school, or 16th year of school, or 20th year of school, that
you are actually learning the kinds of skills that make you
competitive and productive in a modern, technological
economy.” This motivates the question: are graduates of Ireland’s Leaving Cerificate (Leaving Cert.) and PLC programmes getting the skills they
need for the modern economy? To answer this question I think we need to consider reform in the Leaving Cert, curriculum more generally; not just in Leaving Cert. maths. There is the vocational Leaving
Cert. and Applied Leaving Cert. to bear in mind – see link here. But as the majority of students take the conventional Leaving Cert., I will orientate my comments on Leaving Cert. curriculum-reform to the conventional
programme.

It should be noted that Senior Cycle education (i.e.
Transition Year and Leaving Cert. programmes) is currently the subject of a major review by the National Council for Curriculum and
Assessment (NCCA), including curriculum re-structuring and
re-balancing. In the review of senior cycle education, there is a particular focus on the role of ICT in the review of subjects and the development of
short courses. It is proposed that some of the short courses developed
will have a significant ICT focus, for example: “Media Communications
Technology”. Curriculum,
Assessment and ICT in the Irish Context: A Discussion Paper
sets forth the NCCA vision for Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) in curriculum and assessment in Irish primary and
post-primary schools. “This document was developed to stimulate
discussion and deliberation regarding the potential of ICT to support
and extend the curriculum development and assessment work of the
NCCA.” I was also interested to read about “Project Maths”, the link that Con directed us to.

The comments I make below bear in mind exisiting developments in
Senior Cycle curriculum strategy and are largely motivated to address
the question – (how) does the Leaving Cert. prepare students for the
labour market? This includes concerns about:
(i) those whose education stops at Leaving Cert.
(ii) those whose higher education options are restricted by Leaving
Cert. subject choices
(iii) those who enter higher education but subsequently drop out and
find they have to mostly use what they learned in their Leaving Cert.
(iv) those who might consider returning to higher education as a mature student

Some motivation for addressing these concerns is provided by Obama in
the recent NYT
interview: “My grandmother never got a college degree.
She went to high school… She went to work as a secretary. But she
was able to become a vice president at a bank partly because her
high-school education was rigorous enough that she could communicate
and analyze information in a way that, frankly, a bunch of college
kids in many parts of the country can’t…we’ve got to — in our
education-reform agenda — we’ve got to focus not just on increasing
graduation rates, but we’ve also got to make what’s learned in the
high-school and college experience more robust and more
effective…”

The main suggestion that I want to propose is to re-orientate the
Leaving Cert. curriculum to have four compulsory subjects: English,
Maths, Applied Maths (geared towards information technology) and the
“Chemistry
and Biology of Everyday Life” (There is a discussion of CBEL here: here). Having four compulsory subjects at Leaving Cert. (geared towards the needs of the economy) is suggested because (a) the economy is suffering a massive unemployment shock, and (b) there are many potential problems with subject choice at Leaving Cert., including the possibilities that:

– there is only partial information available until the student enters
the college course of their choice (in other words, they may not know
what they would really like to do)
– students may choose “high points” courses simply because they are
“high points” courses (and not true preferences)
– another problem is exemplified by the applicant who decides to look
only at courses within a certain points-band. For example, let us say
that a student anticipates getting 340 points. He or she will scour
the lists of last year’s cut-off points, picking courses that “cost”
340 points or thereabouts, almost regardless of the content of the course

An article from Science describes the CBEL initiative as a potential solution to preference
misalignmnet – at least in the specific subject domain of science. The
article describes how some American universities have been trying to
match science students to their interests. The course called “The
Chemistry and Biology of Everyday Life” (CBEL) was developed using
students’ interests in everyday life as the starting point for
instruction. Of course, the American higher education system is
largely non-specialised at entry to under-graduate level (see more on
this here),
which allows for initiatives such as CBEL post high-school. But why
not have something similar for Leaving Cert. in Ireland, which builds
on what students learned in the Junior Cert.? This would keep students
exposed to science after the Junior Cert. (if they are not doing any
science subjects as options).

One question arises which is obvious enough: “Where do we have time to
fit in CBEL during 5th and 6th year?”. This may be bring us onto some
very difficult questions about the economic returns to certain courses
of education at Leaving Cert. While Irish language is important for
heritage (and knock-on effects on tourism), do we not get enough of
that benefit by schooling students in the Irish language up until
Junior Cert.? Why not have students take CBEL instead of Irish for
Leaving Cert.? Those who want to study Irish at third-level (and I can
see the need for this) could enter third-level courses that pick up
where Junior Cert. Irish left off.

The fourth compulsory subject that I suggest is the Applied
Mathematics course, geared strongly towards information technology (this is wher the work of the Project Maths initiative is most relevant). I
suggest that this could be taken at Higher or Ordinary Level, but the
hope would be that more students would take it at Higher Level
compared to the existing (abstract) course on Maths. Take-up of the
exisiting Maths course at Higher Level is extremely low, so it may be
most realistic to accept that some students will continue to take the
abstract Maths course at Ordinary Level (where they will still get a
Maths work-out). But that they would persist with Higher Level in a new
“applied” Maths course with real-world focus. This course could be
useful for securing IT employment (especially for those whose
education stops at Leaving Cert.) or for securing entry into IT
courses in higher education (and critically, performing well on those
courses).

So the situation I suggest would be as follows – students have to take
Maths, Applied Maths, CBEL and English. And then they would choose
three additional courses. Looking at Leaving Cert. subject choice
between 1997 and 2005 (based on anslysis I conducted here), we know that most students choose Geography, Business Studies, French and Biology for their optional subjects. The following are the most popular subjects, in order. (I should point out that after Accounting, the numbers taking any subject are quite low):

1. Geography
2. Business Studies
3. French
4. Biology
5. Home Econ.
6. History
7. Art
8. Construction
9. Physics
10. Chemistry
11. German
12. Accounting

I should also point out that there is a sizeable fall of about 50% in
the numbers taking any subject after Home Economics. We can see that
the top four (Geography, Business Studies, French and Biology) include
one of Hist/Geog, one “Business” subject, one language and one science
subject. I think having three of these “broad choices” alongside
Maths, Applied Maths, CBEL and English would be a very rounded
preparation before doing anything after second-level. And would also
be a better preparation for entering the labour market, which is what
my argument is all about.

My hunch is that Geography, Business Studies, French, Biology and Home
Econ are being chosen because they are easier exams to score more
points from. I suspect that French is being chosen to get into NUI
colleges, but that Home Econ would be a higher preference if the NUI
language rule did not exist. Under the scope of my suggested
curriculum-reform, Leaving Cert. students can still choose a language
given that they have three optional choices. It could also be argued
that having four (instead of three) compulsory choices might be
fairer, in that it could be viewed as a more level palying-field.

Finally, in relation to potential arguments against curriculum-reform in secondary education (that is aligned to the needs of the economy), I sympathise with any concerns about limitations on free choice. However, as so much of subject choice revolves around maximising Leaving Cert. points, I wonder is it a free choice at all?

This problem will solve itself without investment or extra funding. probably even with less funding as for example most career guidance teachers are now out of date as to what is needed.

Give it a few years… it’ll change. The trend away from hard skills towards value added bullshit is a direct reflection of yesterdays Celtic Tiger society…. kids adapted and gave the market what it wanted, a generation of bullshitters… cant blame them… in a world which valued interior design above engineering, it made sense to join the bullshitters.

When kids realise the game has changed; they will change.

No amount of “strategy” will change the fundamentals, dont waste money on consultants talking to each other.

One of the reasons behind the poor or poorly average performance of irish students in maths, is its nerdy image; and an education system which values well spread mediocrity over targetted excellence.Irish kids have the intelligence, theres no problem there ,but boys IN PARTICULAR are not willing to put in the work and risk the time lost to sport and binge drinking and run the risk of being mocked as a nerdy.Its a cultural issue and Ireland will most likely win another prize for literature or even GOD long before it will for Physics or chemistry.The knowledge economy is a spoof, we are a proxy off shore FACTORY FOR the USA But the nano designers, and third generation forward thinkers are not for the most part Irish.Finally the main driver of innovation and economic sucess is not IQ ITS IQ +Education SYSTEM quality level + cultural environment ,All these factors are in the mix and influence the result which pushes the brighest and the best to be brighter and better and those who not so clever to reach their full potential

@Graham

We have an interest in our common future – our princesses are probably not well equipped for an apocalypse.

But our kids are the repository of our genes.
Our in this case very definitely means my wife and I, not the plain people of Ireland.
This is the nearest approach we can make to immortality in a very mortal world.

Our kids are not a personal spending choice – they are an investment in the survival of our genes and are driven by those very selfish genes.

========================

Local good quite academic girls school.
Of 100 5th year girls, only 3 chose physics so the school cannot offer the subject this year.
Very sad.

It may be better to wait until after the Leaving Cert has been sat before getting worried about this year’s numbers taking maths at Higher level. It will be clearer then how many of those registered for the Higher Level paper actually chose to sit it. The actual number that took it last year was 8,510, or 17.0% of those who sat a Maths paper. This was up a little in numbers, and down (but only marginally) in percentage terms since 2007.

This is also true, Maurice.

I find the issue fascinating – the tension between the social function of children and their role as DNA conduits for mortal parents seeking to cheat death.

Still, I tend parents’ vicarious utility function can be solved at multiple equilibria. In other words, the “cheating death” satisfaction accruing to parents in, say, Sweden is just as great as in a country like Ireland, despite the fact that Swedish parents see their vicarious consumption set constrained in a way Irish parents do not.

@Graham
“Your kids are not a personal spending choice. They are our common future.”

Don’t think I quite like the way that argument might head…..

Anyway let’s say there are no fee paying schools and we all put our children through the state system. Questions:
1. Would that improve the overall performance of all students and therefore improve everyone’s common future? Or would it drag everyone down to the lowest common denominator but at least it’s “fair”
2. Would we have to ban grinds and other sneaky advantages those pesky parents who really don’t care so much about the so called “common future” (whoever decides what that may be) but do care about their own children’s future.
3. I have always helped my children with their homework, bought toys and games that challenged and stimulated them… maybe that should be banned too.

The reality is there will always be parents who value education more than other parents and will act accordingly within whatever constraints society decides to place on them. That means time and money and the likely outcome is their children will perform better.

Tried to get some stats
2006/07 183,721 students, 732 secondary schools. Fee paying 58 (Of which 21 are Protestant). Apparently they got c€85m in subsidies.

Per the site below it would cost the state €809m in grants if all these students switched to the state sector.

http://www.finegael.ie/news/index.cfm/type/details/nkey/24497

It would seem some of the fees paid goes towards things that the state sector get funded by the government. (Apart from the Protestant fee paying schools which receive much the same grants as the state sector)

“These schools receive no funding under the school building programme. Neither the upkeep of school buildings nor the development of science, sports and library facilities is paid for by the State. Nor, unlike schools in the free education scheme, do fee-paying schools receive a capitation grant or monies under the school service support fund.” Olwyn Enright

Meanwhile the Institute of Education charges €6,950 per annum. I don’t know if they get any grants at all. Probably have to ban them too!

First of all removing the subsidy of private schools will not increase the state coffers by €100 million as the state will still have to pay for teachers for those children currently in private education, in effect private schools are subsidising the state by allowing parents to invest extra money into their child’s school. As someone who went to private school I feel the quality of the teaching is roughly on a par with most other schools (the teachers after all have the same state contracts) but there is perhaps a greater investment in extra curricular activities such as sport (surely a discretionary expense).
I don’t feel that any great educational advantage was bestowed on me as the school was a mixed ability school with results similar to public schools in the area. I see very little difference between a private school and most public schools with a voluntary (semi compulsory) contribution.
However the problem of mixing children with different academic ability and possibly with children with a learning disability is something I do not believe in as it has the potential to seriously impede the progress of children with a higher academic ability, there seems to be increasing pressure on both public and private schools to increase this integration.
Effectively this system discriminates against children of higher academic ability. The debate should instead focus on trying to provide the best educational environment to all children but in particular those with high academic ability as these children will grow up to be the economic innovators of the future. Possibly separate schools could be set up to stream these children into, however the door should always remain open to those who initially might not have achieved the required standard to enter at a later date. If these schools had better facilities and a good reputation children would strive to entre these schools and perhaps academic ability would not be a seen as a nerdy unpopular trait but rather something highly valuable and desirable.

First of all removing the subsidy of private schools will not increase the state coffers by €100 million as the state will still have to pay for teachers for those children currently in private education, in effect private schools are subsidising the state by allowing parents to invest extra money into their child’s school. As someone who went to private school I feel the quality of the teaching is roughly on a par with most other schools (the teachers after all have the same state contracts) but there is perhaps a greater investment in extra curricular activities such as sport (surely a discretionary expense).

I don’t feel that any great educational advantage was bestowed on me as the school was a mixed ability school with results similar to public schools in the area. I see very little difference between a private school and most public schools with a voluntary (semi compulsory) contribution.

However the problem of mixing children with different academic ability and possibly with children with a learning disability is something I do not believe in as it has the potential to seriously impede the progress of children with a higher academic ability, there seems to be increasing pressure on both public and private schools to increase this integration.

Effectively this system discriminates against children of higher academic ability. The debate should instead focus on trying to provide the best educational environment to all children but in particular those with high academic ability as these children will grow up to be the economic innovators of the future. Possibly separate schools could be set up to stream these children into, however the door should always remain open to those who initially might not have achieved the required standard to enter at a later date. If these schools had better facilities and a good reputation children would strive to entre these schools and perhaps academic ability would not be a seen as a nerdy unpopular trait but rather something highly valuable and desirable.

Just to note some Historical and present days facts before people continue giving comments which ,
there is no public schools in Ireland.

All Primary Schools are private, It has been this way since the foundation of the state. It was originally religious (both Protestant and Catholic) institutions who set up the majority of education in this country. 98% of all State-funded primary schools are privately owned and managed by religious bodies. The breakdown is approximately 93% Catholic and almost 6% Church of Ireland, Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian schools with one Jewish and 2 Muslim National Schools. remaining 2% are Educate Together schools.

Secondary Schools which accounts for 54% of the Second Level students are privately owned and managed – usually by religious or former religious Institutions. 93% finance by the State.
Vocational Schools and Community Colleges educate 33% of all second level students are administered by Vocational Education committees (Statutory body – Vocational Education Act 1930) 93% finance by the State.

Comprehensive Schools – Managed board of Management representative of the Diocesan Religious Authority. 100% finance by the State
Community Schools – Board of Management representative of Local Interests. 100% finance by the State.

From My Experience, You can easily tell by simple statistics even with poor Maths background you can tell which teachers are better than others, Just look at the Pupils Grades before and after they had certain teachers using simple graphs that First years can do. It is bloody obvious. If Pupils cannot understand teachers how can they learn.
They are teachers who don’t care and bore the hell out of students that put them to sleep, Teachers think they Job is beneath them and belittle Students if they do not understand and others who do not understand the Subject they are desperately trying to teach. It easy to pick out good teachers without looking at grades all you have to do is ask the Students.

I suggest that you should use a carrot and stick approach not only to pupils but to especially teachers as well. Reward good Teachers and watch out for those who cheat by checking standards and on the spot inspections especially at exam time, by insisting that all Exam papers and questions are stored so they can be checked by external examiner.
In my old school we a a problematic Irish Teacher with a bad dose of a temper, she was also “the beneath me” kind, who sent me regularly to the principle office usually with a few more which became a ritual walk. Knock, Walk in , sit down quietly, he hands me the paper and when bell goes off hand back the paper and pretend to have tears and say goodbye to the principle, usually with quote see you at next Irish class. This was fairly ritual as I always had problems learning things I do not understand. I had this Teacher since First Year, Grades Dropped Rapidly . But one Day in year before Leaving Cert, I did my usually walk to the principle office, this time on my own as other were off school due to the Flu, While I was reading the paper he got off the phone and pull my file from the Drawer. and when through my grades, He gave me my first Decent Career guidance Talk.
There was a Career Guidance Teacher who suppose to give it, had no clue about other types of careers, He kept says he did not know or he would get back to us and we still waiting 15 years later, we (Students) knew more that he did and kept correcting him on basic jobs such as electricians and Fitters, mechanics, but we wanted to know more about third level courses and types of Jobs that comes out of them and what we needed for them. But back to my principle he when through my grades in French and Failed First Christmas exam with flying colours and Got a B in the Summer and Hit downwards the following Christmas and remaining exams until and then drop it for Leaving Cert as there was only 1 French Teacher in the school. I had to remind my Principle That I got that B because herself was off pregnant and the Sub was in and taught us in a way that did not make French a dull and boring subject. He notice my other Subject, Science subject A’s, B’s and C’s but none failing, Technical Subject were in the A’s and B’s and Maths were Good also (Brilliant Teacher). but had to dropped down to lower level due to home problems.
He brought Students wanted to learn grades (especially those who were of had poor grades maths from primary schools) up to the level of the others in the class only if the Students wanted to learn.
Good Teachers can make a difference and should be rewarded and acknowledge accordingly and not paid according to how long they are at the school.

Hi Stuart,

Some very good questions, in what is not doubt a difficult and thorny issue.

I do think you should be careful of straw-man arguments, though, in fairness. Nobody is suggesting banning parents from helping their kids with their homework and this is not the same as taking away state support for private fee-paying schools. Just like banning bazookas is not the same as banning sharp steak knives.

Your first question is a good one, in my opinion. I suppose the answer is “it’s hard to say, prima facea” except to note that if PISA scores are anything to judge by, then regimes with low private school market share tend to do better all round that those with lots of private schools.

And there is certainly a lot of intuition in this. The idea is to get the good parents like you to care about the whole of the system (not just your own kids’ homework). If we stop you from sending your kids to a private school, I guess we oblige you to do that.

The thing about private school is that (in my experience of it, anyway) parents are not paying for better teaching. They are paying in order that their children will be in a social and educational environment together with other kids whose parents are also paying.

The idea is to keep them away from the kids whose parents are either unwilling or unable to cough up the fees.

As Groucho Marx had it, “I wouldn’t join any club that would accept me as a member.”

@Graham
“The thing about private school is that (in my experience of it, anyway) parents are not paying for better teaching. They are paying in order that their children will be in a social and educational environment together with other kids whose parents are also paying.”

We do agree here. The benefit of our children being with other children who are conditioned by their parents that they should be getting good grades is probably the most beneficial from the fee paying system. I do believe that the number 1 factor in how a child does in their school years is the attitude towards education at home.

Obviously it is the primary years that are crucial to how the children perform in secondary. I had no problem sending my children to a fantastic national school down the road because the environment for learning was right. Somehow we have to create that environment at second level.

Thankfully my concern is nearing an end – just 2 years to go! Give Niall his due, he serves on a voluntary board. Probably does need more committed parents. Thankless task I suspect.

Kevin,

There are a number of angles that can be taken in response to your post. Will the knowledge economy suffer without enough students doing Honours Maths for Leaving Cert.? Or will students suffer without Honours training in Leaving Cert. Maths, when they enter the (knowledge) economy? Only 19% of LC students took Honours Maths this year, so this
begs directly for thoughts on curriculum reform. I think this extends beyond Leaving Cert. Maths, and to the whole Leaving Cert. curriculum.

At the recent ESRI Labour Market Conference, Philip O’Connell discussed how the educational profile of unemployed males has evolved such that the biggest increases (between 2006 and 2008) in unemployment for males
occur for those with Leaving Certificate and PLC qualifications.

http://www.esri.ie/docs/What_works_300409.ppt

In a recent New York Times interview with Obama, the U.S. President states that “I think the big challenge that we’ve got on education is making sure that from kindergarten or prekindergarten through your 14th or 15th
year of school, or 16th year of school, or 20th year of school, that
you are actually learning the kinds of skills that make you competitive and productive in a modern, technological economy… we’ve got to focus not just on increasing graduation rates, but we’ve also got to make what’s learned in the high-school and college experience more robust and more
effective…”

This motivates the question: are graduates of Ireland’s Leaving Cerificate and PLC programmes getting the skills they need for the modern economy? To answer this question I think we need to consider reform in the Leaving Cert. curriculum more generally; not just in Leaving Cert. Maths.

There is the vocational Leaving Cert. and Applied Leaving Cert. to bear in mind, but as the majority of students take the conventional Leaving Cert., I will orientate my comments on Leaving Cert. curriculum-reform to the conventional programme.

It should be noted that Senior Cycle education (i.e.
Transition Year and Leaving Cert. programmes) is currently the subject of a major review by the National Council for Curriculum and
Assessment(NCCA), including curriculum re-structuring and
re-balancing.

http://www.ncca.ie/eng/Curriculum_and_Assessment/Post-Primary_Education/Senior_Cycle/Senior_Cycle_Review/Senior_Cycle_Review.html

In the review of senior cycle education, there is a particular focus on the role of ICT in the review of subjects and the development of
short courses. It is proposed that some of the short courses developed
will have a significant ICT focus, for example: “Media Communications
Technology”.

http://www.ncca.ie/uploadedfiles/ECPE/Curriculum20AssessmentandICT.pdf”

The comments I make below bear in mind exisiting developments in
Senior Cycle curriculum strategy and are largely motivated to address
the question – (how) does the Leaving Cert. prepare students for the
labour market? This includes concerns about:
(i) those whose education stops at Leaving Cert.
(ii) those whose higher education options are restricted by Leaving
Cert. subject choices
(iii) those who enter higher education but subsequently drop out and
find they have to mostly use what they learned in their Leaving Cert.
(iv) those who might consider returning to higher education as a mature student

The main suggestion that I want to propose is to re-orientate the
Leaving Cert. curriculum to have four compulsory subjects: English,
Maths, Applied Maths (geared towards information technology) and the
“Chemistry and Biology of Everyday Life” (CBEL). There is a discussion of CBEL here: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/318/5858/1872.pdf

Having four compulsory subjects at Leaving Cert. (geared towards the needs of the economy) is suggested because (a) the economy is suffering a massive unemployment shock, and (b) there are many potential problems with subject choice at Leaving Cert., including the possibilities that:
– there is only partial information available until the student enters
the college course of their choice (in other words, they may not know
what they would really like to do)
– students may choose “high points” courses simply because they are
“high points” courses (and not true preferences)
– another problem is exemplified by the applicant who decides to look
only at courses within a certain points-band. For example, let us say
that a student anticipates getting 340 points. He or she will scour
the lists of last year’s cut-off points, picking courses that “cost”
340 points or thereabouts, almost regardless of the content of the course

The articel on CBEL from Science describes the initiative as a potential solution to preference misalignmnet – at least in the specific subject domain of science. The article describes how some American universities have been trying to match science students to their interests. The course called “The Chemistry and Biology of Everyday Life” (CBEL) was developed using students’ interests in everyday life as the starting point for
instruction.

Of course, the American higher education system is largely non-specialised at entry to under-graduate level, which allows for initiatives such as CBEL post high-school. But why not have something similar for Leaving Cert. in Ireland, which builds on what students learned in the Junior Cert.? This would keep students exposed to science after the Junior Cert. (if they are not doing any science subjects as options).

One question arises which is obvious enough: “Where do we have time to
fit in CBEL during 5th and 6th year?”. This may be bring us onto some
very difficult questions about the economic returns to certain courses
of education at Leaving Cert. While Irish language is important for
heritage (and knock-on effects on tourism), do we not get enough of
that benefit by schooling students in the Irish language up until
Junior Cert.? Why not have students take CBEL instead of Irish for
Leaving Cert.? Those who want to study Irish at third-level (and I can
see the need for this) could enter third-level courses that pick up
where Junior Cert. Irish left off.

The fourth compulsory subject that I suggest is the Applied
Mathematics course, geared strongly towards information technology (this is where the work of the Project Maths initiative is most relevant). I
suggest that this could be taken at Higher or Ordinary Level, but the
hope would be that more students would take it at Higher Level
compared to the existing (abstract) course on Maths. Take-up of the
exisiting Maths course at Higher Level is extremely low, so it may be
most realistic to accept that some students will continue to take the
abstract Maths course at Ordinary Level (where they will still get a
Maths work-out). But that they would persist with Higher Level in a new
“applied” Maths course with real-world focus. This course could be
useful for securing IT employment (especially for those whose
education stops at Leaving Cert.) or for securing entry into IT
courses in higher education (and critically, performing well on those
courses).

So the scenario I suggest would be as follows – students have to take
Maths, Applied Maths, CBEL and English. And then they would choose
three additional courses. Looking at Leaving Cert. subject choice
between 1997 and 2005 (based on anslysis I conducted here: http://gearybehaviourcenter.blogspot.com/2007/06/leaving-cert-subject-choice-and.html“), we know that most students choose Geography, Business Studies, French and Biology for their optional subjects. The following are the most popular subjects, in order. (I should point out that after Accounting, the numbers taking any subject are quite low):

1. Geography
2. Business Studies
3. French
4. Biology
5. Home Econ.
6. History
7. Art
8. Construction
9. Physics
10. Chemistry
11. German
12. Accounting

I should also point out that there is a sizeable fall of about 50% in
the numbers taking any subject after Home Economics. We can see that
the top four (Geography, Business Studies, French and Biology) include
one of Hist/Geog, one “Business” subject, one language and one science
subject. I think having three of these “broad choices” alongside
Maths, Applied Maths, CBEL and English would be a very rounded
preparation before doing anything after second-level. And would also
be a better preparation for entering the labour market, which is what
my argument is all about.

My hunch is that Geography, Business Studies, French, Biology and Home
Econ are being chosen because they are easier exams to score more
points from. I suspect that French is being chosen to get into NUI
colleges, but that Home Econ would be a higher preference if the NUI
language rule did not exist. Under the scope of my suggested
curriculum-reform, Leaving Cert. students can still choose a language
given that they have three optional choices. It could also be argued
that having four (instead of three) compulsory choices might be
fairer, in that it could be viewed as a more level playing-field.

Finally, in relation to potential arguments against curriculum-reform that is aligned to the needs of the economy, I sympathise with any concerns about limitations on free choice. However, as so much of subject choice revolves around maximising Leaving Cert. points, I wonder is it a free choice to begin with?

Clearly, poor (or at least not high) and falling maths standards are a problem for the knowledge economy, but I disagree with this focus.

There is a small literature that shows that although the effect of education on economic growth is hard to pin down, the effect of maths and science skill levels in the population is positive, significant and robust (see eg. Hanushek & Kimbo, 2000, AER). Maths standards are important for growth, which is probably because of the effect of enabling R&D, which then causes growth. This fits in with the Knowledge Economy hand-wringing.

But there was a very interesting paper in the Journal of Human Resources earlier this year that suggests that this is not the only reason maths are important. This paper (by Joensen and Nielsen) cleverly used a Danish pilot study that induced more students to choose higher maths to identify a causal effect of maths on earnings, and found that it was huge – five times bigger than the effect of gender on earnings. This was largely because taking more maths led to students having more education – they were more likely to complete both school and college. This was not because only the cleverest kids took maths – that’s controlled for. A reasonable reading is that it’s because it made the kids better students.

This paper attracted my attention partly because it supported a pet theory of mine, which goes like this. Maths is the only subject that all students take that teaches logical thinking. This is not needed only for engineering and computer nerds, but for many, many jobs. Education is not about filling minds full of stuff, it’s about teaching students how to think. Maths trains the mind in a way that no other subject does.

The first person to draw my attention to this was a academic lawyer friend of mine, who said that the school subject that she believes to be most important for law is maths. Law is extremely logical, and the fact that she had been good at maths at school developed her logical capability. So this attitude that maths is only important for a very narrow range of university degrees drives me nuts.

For this reason, I think that incentivising all students to take higher maths is very important. It can be done very cheaply, just by adjusting the points system.

As an aside, is anyone else depressed that there is no calculus that I can see on that revised Maths syllabus linked in the first post? Maybe I’m misreading?

Interesting comments. Any of you real Veblen: Conspicuous Consumption? Specifically Chapts: VIII and IX.

We do need to reform the both the primary and the secondary curricula – but why? The answer is not what you think it might be!

Do you really understand how humans learn things? Reading some of the above comments I have my doubts. For a different view of Math education try Shelia Tobias – ‘They’re Not Dumb – They’re Different’.

Brian P

Small point but when calculating the effect of withdrawing funding from private schools it should be noted that some are small and have small class sizes. Given the demographic realities of a declining birth rate and a halt to immigration it is likely that most will be accommodated within existing schools. Just because the average grant/cost per student is X does not mean the incremental cost/student is also X.

@Mark
But why close private schoosl that don’t have any problem filling their enrolement quotas and often have better facilities. Why not close the schools that are disadvanataged and underperforming? Are small class sizes not a good thing, especially when parents are subsidising it?

As posted above
“These schools receive no funding under the school building programme. Neither the upkeep of school buildings nor the development of science, sports and library facilities is paid for by the State. Nor, unlike schools in the free education scheme, do fee-paying schools receive a capitation grant or monies under the school service support fund.” Olwyn Enright

@Mark
These schools are not small. The one my children go to has over 900 pupils. As pointed out earlier the private schools tend to be in urban areas and all the ones I know are large, packed and have waiting lists.

There are two basic arguments as argued out in earlier posts
1. All children in the state must have equal educational opportunities. No one must be allowed to invest in education that gives their child an advantage over others. If they do pay they get no state aid.
2. Paying for education is a choice like any other and should be allowed in a free democratic society. The state should support each child equally in the grants available. It is up to the parents to top that up if they so wish.

By the way the school that my children goes to does not restrict admissions based on academic achievement. There is no entrance exam, students do not get pushed out or held back. The only restriction is the ability to pay the fees. The cost is just €15 per day when you divide by 365. Not quite as exclusive as you might think. A pack of 20 cigarettes is €8.45. A pint costs around €5.

Why do so many of you persist in referring to ‘private’ schools when what you mean are ‘fee paying’ schools?

As Donal pointed out above, the distinction between private and public schools does not apply in Ireland where all schools are supported by the state to some extent while, at the same time, the great majority are ‘privately’ managed, by the churches in the main.

If we want to discuss how to reform education in Ireland, it’s pretty important to have a clear understanding of where we’re starting from!

Kevin’s post raised an important issue, and in my view the fee-paying/non-fee-paying debate is utterly irrelevant to it.

The problem is not only in education but with the rewards and advancement systems in business and society.

– If you are a second tier maths student who labours away at maths to get a job as an engineer or software engineer or some such other job then (unless you are bringing in business to a company through marketing and networking) you are going to be an expendable second tier employee with you whole economic future at the whim of a large corporation that could up sticks and go to India any day of the week.
– You will constantly be in competition with new graduates who have learnt new skills meaning that you will find it hard to accumulate wealth.
– Your employer will not necessarily be happy to develop your skills as it may make you more expensive and is more expensive than hiring a fresh face.
– If your employer goes bust you are likely to be so specialised that you will have to be re-educated before you can transfer your skills.
– In many of the jobs you do not interract with people outside your company so our social development is narrowed.
– Also, people outside your indistry don’t understand what you do so you can’t chat to them about it.
– If your company’s management and workforce is very male dominated it is more likely to be chauvanistic and dysfunctional leading to a psychologicaly damaging working environment.

If we want to develop a knowledge economy then we need a knowledge appreciative economy. The educators, politicians and civil servants (as specialists have been stripped out) are all for reform which leads to other people going into these fields. Perhaps if scientists and eingineers could take sabbaticals or could get pension rights if they had a tilt at the Dail then things would be different. Perhaps if there were a legal obligation on companies to allow employees to upskill themselves in any technical are at the companies expense then careers would be more assured. Perhaps if our public broadcaster and broadsheets dedicated more time to issues then they would become more comprehensible to the woman in the street.

An interesting discussion. I am particularly pleased at zhou_enlai’s identification that to develop a knowledge economy, then we need a knowledge apprecative economy.

The potential third level cohorts appreciate that too. They are probably more adept than our policy makers at distinguishing between real future prospects and educational bubbles, such as the over-focus on specific IT skills [with law next?]. Individuals in each cohort will make their own trade-offs between effort, satisfaction and financial rewards.

I am a disappointed that so many contributors seem to identify education only with utilitarian training goals. Character formation, broad skills sets and engagement with the world as surely at least as important. Can we really expect people and society to be fulfilled/ successful if the educational system turns its back on cultural/philosphical values and contexts, is monoligually English and gives no appreciation of the inherent implausibility of perpetual motion machines (technical or economic)?

To quote from the late Col Edward Daly (Ned) Doyle (Irish Times today), “You have to understand people, you have to understand context and you have to understand the issues of the day” – and he is also reported to have had a reputation for his maths teaching.

Aedin,

I agree that Kevin’s post raised an important issue; the the fee-paying/non-fee-paying debate would have been better suited to a different thread. As it happens though, those engaging in that debate may be interested in an op-ed piece by Sean Byrne from the Business Faculty at Dublin Institute of Technology; it’s in today’s Irish Times:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0603/1224247947168.html

Geting back to the point of Kevin’s post, I agree with you Aedin that poor (or at least not high) and falling maths standards are a problem for the knowledge economy. However, I disagree that Maths is the only subject that all students take that teaches logical thinking. At least up until Junior Cert; I know you were referring to Leaving Cert. My proposal involves introducing a compulsory Science subject (Chemistry and Biology of Every Day Life) for the Leaving Cert. Ideally, this course would build on the experimental approach outlined in Junior Cert. Science, and perhaps even it could cover RCT’s and address some concerns (in a student-friendly way) from Karl Popper’s “Logic of Scientific Discovery”.

I think wide curriculum reform at Leaving Cert. is necessary because it’s not enough just to award bonus points for Higher Maths (as suggested by others). An understanding of science can only help innovation, so why not make this compulsory for Leaving Cert.? Why force students to learn Irish when it’s economic returns are dubious? And why focus on awarding bonus points for Higher Maths when we could introduce a second (compulsory) Leaving Cert. course in Applied Mathematics?

I also noticed that there is no explicit reference to Calculus on the Project Maths syllabus in the first post. However, it must be covered under section 5: “functions”.

Perhaps a course which explained the roles, jobs and structures of financial and professional corporations, small businesses, professional practice, industry, research, industrial production, software development, civil service and the medical and educational sectors would be of benefit to people. At least then people could decide where they might have a role to play in the knowledge society.

If the 15%-20% who studied honours maths got the opportunity to apply themselves then we might have a chance of developing a knowledge society. I was a straight A student in applied maths, honours maths and physics but I did not see a career path which gave me a good chance of achieving earnings commensurate with my ability while doing interesting work. I know a number of engineers who left engineering because the management cultures in large companies did not suit them.

Secondly, there are hoards of people working in IT, biology, construction and other industries who couldn’t get within an ass’s roar of an A or a B in honours maths. They are good at their jobs which require logical thinking. If you need more people to be able to think logically then a syllabus other then honours maths will be required. If you want people to study such a new syllabus then it will have to be interesting. Basic computer programming and program design would do the trick. Systems analysis and relational databases might help too.

As for honours maths, it would b e alot more interesting if it cold be couched in terms of real world problems. We start out with apples and pence but then eschew those childish devices for pure abstractions. That is a fatal error. As long as our teachers do not understand how maths are used in technology then this problem will remain. It should also be possible to use computers in honours maths. Training people to draw meaningless quadratic equation graphs is beyond pathetic.

The several mentions of ‘Knowledge Economy’ need to be explained by those of you using this term. What exactly do you mean by a Knowledge Economy? Please stop using this term until you explicate it.

The majority of contemporary economies are knowledge-based, some being considerably more technologically advanced than others. So what are you going on about? Presumably, I am guessing here, you mean graduate-level employees. To what purpose?

I am also guessing that you have as your economic Model-in-Use, Permagrowth. The one that is slowly sinking into a swamp of debt! So how will a Knowledge Economy put Permagrowth back on ‘growth’?

You want a real Knowledge Economy:

Teach kids how to cook a hot meal, to build and maintain a two roomed dwelling, the basics of domestic plumbing, how to dismantle and re-assemble a motorcycle engine, how to grow food. There are lots more useful knowledges out there – its called Self-sufficiency.

You do need to be able to do sums for many of the above tasks – specifically you must be able to solve quantitative problems! I reckon that the 20% of the Leaving Cert cohort who are able at math and science will be sufficient. The rest will have to support them. Or is there a covert agenda here?

Brian P

41 replies on “The knowledge economy”