Universities should take to the ‘lifeboats’
This post was written by Paul Walsh
Common wisdom suggests the state will not be ready to co-fund the IMF-EU deal by mid 2012. Another deal will accompany a slash in payments to the social sectors including Education. Is the third level sector ready for such a crisis?
The Irish State pays a core grant to our third-level institutions for each undergraduate student, and, in an equal amount, funds the majority of research and postgraduate fees (scholarships). The latter is managed by a proliferation of various third level education bodies which we label Quangos. The sector has developed an unnaturally high dependency on the public finances. This dependence is currently anywhere between 65 to 88 per cent in most Higher Education Institutes
The funding of third-level Quangos now represent an unsustainable overhead on the sector, as this form of finance flowing from the State is on the decline. The indirect costs or the administrative structures that have mushroomed during the boom (which distributed State money) are now vestigial and are turning into a major financial headache and constraint on the sector. The HEI’s must replace these funds with international research grants and postgraduate students. The Quangos are largely ill equipped to induce and manage this change.
The Universities, while undertaking many good reforms, made the mistake of allowing indirect costs inside universities to grow to over 50 per cent. Frontline lecturers’ salaries now only account for 25 per cent of the overall cost of the sector, when we include the overheads of Quangos. Academic salaries have collapsed by 25 per cent (net) since 2008. Most academic units have also lost up to 15 per cent of their staff via retirements or voluntary quits. These savings are returned and retained by the State and not by the Universities. The oversized non-academic and undersized academic units are finding it a challenge to refocus efforts into securing funds from outside of Ireland. Academics need to be empowered to make such change happen.
What is the solution proposed by State and its agencies to cope with the current crisis?
An imposed agreement, under the false premises of Croke Park, to increase productivity levels of declining numbers of frontline lecturing staff is their answer. Not surprisingly, these productivity increases can never pay for what are now largely indirect costs in the sector. New income streams are needed: higher levels of international students who pay fees, more EU and Global research funding successes, and private sources.
Yet, all hiring and promotions (whether funded by the State or not), that have come under the State’s employment control, are now banned. The most recent instalment of employment control wants to redeploy academics within and across institutions. There are even conditions on the nature of research that is allowed. The focus of such is on the disciplines that will drive the smart economy (see http://des-fitzgerald.com/ecf/).
This is a ludicrous attempt to turn academics into public servants. The agents of the State seem to have no idea how knowledge is created and dispersed. Academics in a global market face competition from serious creators of knowledge and find every international student and grant is a hard battle won. Publishing in the leading journals and university presses is like winning Olympic medals in terms of a lifetime dedication to the cause. Academic credentials need to be first class, a Ph.D. from a top University and ground breaking publications. Academics need the time and space to perform at these levels. Imposing constraints on academic freedom and tenure will only give our competitors an advantage over us, deter international students and grants from coming here and could rupture our growing reputation in scholarship internationally. The idea that an academic in UCD that gets a research grant from a major donor should first see if there is someone surplus to requirements inside UCD and then search in other universities, or even State departments, before hiring a post-doc clearly indicates to me that the state has no idea how knowledge is created. Incentives are for academics to leave Ireland rather than refocus efforts.
What do we do?
Universities have to realise the State is broke. Just like the State should have understood the Irish Banks were broke, now the Universities have to drop the State like a hot potato (Taxpayers and the IMF-EU would approve).
Trinity by the nature of its charter and academic ownership of its property can break from State faster than most.
The first move would be to establish income streams from undergraduate fees, increase the number of international students and external research income.
Most Universities like Trinity already have private enterprise on campus in terms of the library shop, rented accommodation, a Foundation office and Campus Companies. These could turn a higher profit to fertilise academic scholarship.
The University of Dublin, and the National University of Ireland, could create new colleges. Let’s call the one alongside Trinity College, “Christchurch College”. Christchurch could hire and promote and pay pensions on a private basis funded by the new income streams. All existing contracts could be honoured by Trinity College.
The nature of self governance in a third-level institution means that academics rule. They can promote academic scholarship, and while doing so they can control all non-academic units and can easily restructure the internal indirect costs over-time and reduce them to less than 30 per cent, retaining these savings to invest in Education and Research.
The top slicing of finance by education Quangos would be removed and most importantly their ability to constrain academic freedom to create knowledge for use in a global society would come to a deserved end.
Some universities have endowments and assets that could buy the limited time to achieve such academic and financial security.
Even if the State does not default the case for the third-level institutions to break away from the influence of the State and its agencies is growing with every minute.
The Irish State is a sinking ship and academics need to escape on lifeboats labelled ‘University Charters for use when Academic Scholarship is put at risk from the State, Church or private interests’. The Founders’ bequest throughout the centuries gives academics an instrument for use when academic scholarship is threatened. Academics need to use it now.
March 13th, 2011 at 8:14 pm
its not just Des Fitz thats enraged
see Ferdinand von P at http://universitydiary.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/irish-higher-education-exercising-crazy-soviet-style-state-control/
” The ‘employment control framework’ is a crazy and ludicrous scheme, providing no financial benefit to the exchequer, but with the capacity to destroy the competitiveness and strategic innovation of Irish higher education. It is to be hoped that the new government will move quickly to reverse this madness.”
and Colm Kearney at http://www.colmkearney.ie/?p=543
“As Professor of International Business, having held chairs in Economics and in Finance, and as a former senior economic advisor to the Australian Minister for Finance, I well understand the need for responsible fiscal management.
The new ‘Employment Control Framework for the Higher Education Sector 2011-2014’ is dated 10 March 2011. I have carefully read this document (henceforth referred to as the ECF2) a number of times over the weekend – with a growing sense of disbelief. It is the worst example of policy design and attempted implementation that I have ever come across.”
Its also notable that this was , if we believe Colm Harmon, a man well connected to the organs of educational policy making, Lenny’s Last Laugh(TM) http://universitydiary.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/irish-higher-education-exercising-crazy-soviet-style-state-control/#comment-13891
“Shocking and totally fails any cost-benefit test you might like to try.
Signed literally the morning Lenihan left office while Enda in the Park. If anyone has direct line to Minister Quinn, Noonan, Howlin – use it. This can be dealt with in the stroke of a pen.”
the twittersphere is alight with comments from scientists and researchers at #ecf11 : it doesnt make pretty reading.
March 13th, 2011 at 8:16 pm
apparently hyperlinks are bad…
heres again without
its not just Des Fitz thats enraged
see Ferdinand von P a thttp://universitydiary.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/irish-higher-education-exercising-crazy-soviet-style-state-control/
” The ‘employment control framework’ is a crazy and ludicrous scheme, providing no financial benefit to the exchequer, but with the capacity to destroy the competitiveness and strategic innovation of Irish higher education. It is to be hoped that the new government will move quickly to reverse this madness.”
and Colm Kearney at http://www.colmkearney.ie/?p=543
“As Professor of International Business, having held chairs in Economics and in Finance, and as a former senior economic advisor to the Australian Minister for Finance, I well understand the need for responsible fiscal management.
The new ‘Employment Control Framework for the Higher Education Sector 2011-2014’ is dated 10 March 2011. I have carefully read this document (henceforth referred to as the ECF2) a number of times over the weekend – with a growing sense of disbelief. It is the worst example of policy design and attempted implementation that I have ever come across.”
Its also notable that this was , if we believe Colm Harmon, a man well connected to the organs of educational policy making, Lenny’s Last Laugh(TM) http://universitydiary.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/irish-higher-education-exercising-crazy-soviet-style-state-control/#comment-13891
“Shocking and totally fails any cost-benefit test you might like to try.
Signed literally the morning Lenihan left office while Enda in the Park. If anyone has direct line to Minister Quinn, Noonan, Howlin – use it. This can be dealt with in the stroke of a pen.”
the twittersphere is alight with comments from scientists and researchers at #ecf11 : it doesnt make pretty reading.
March 13th, 2011 at 8:21 pm
ts not just Des Fitz thats enraged
see Ferdinand von P at http://universitydiary.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/irish-higher-education-exercising-crazy-soviet-style-state-control/
” The ‘employment control framework’ is a crazy and ludicrous scheme, providing no financial benefit to the exchequer, but with the capacity to destroy the competitiveness and strategic innovation of Irish higher education. It is to be hoped that the new government will move quickly to reverse this madness.”
March 13th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
and Colm Kearney at http://www.colmkearney.ie/?p=543
“As Professor of International Business, having held chairs in Economics and in Finance, and as a former senior economic advisor to the Australian Minister for Finance, I well understand the need for responsible fiscal management.
The new ‘Employment Control Framework for the Higher Education Sector 2011-2014’ is dated 10 March 2011. I have carefully read this document (henceforth referred to as the ECF2) a number of times over the weekend – with a growing sense of disbelief. It is the worst example of policy design and attempted implementation that I have ever come across.”
March 13th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Its also notable that this was , if we believe Colm Harmon, a man well connected to the organs of educational policy making, Lenny’s Last Laugh(TM) http://universitydiary.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/irish-higher-education-exercising-crazy-soviet-style-state-control/#comment-13891
“Shocking and totally fails any cost-benefit test you might like to try.
Signed literally the morning Lenihan left office while Enda in the Park. If anyone has direct line to Minister Quinn, Noonan, Howlin – use it. This can be dealt with in the stroke of a pen.”
the twittersphere is alight with comments from scientists and researchers at #ecf11 : it doesnt make pretty reading.
March 13th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
some moderator maybe take down 80% of the above…:(
March 13th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
more support/funding for state of the art facilities/staff, should come from multinationals and corporate business availing of IE giveaways eg CT:)
March 13th, 2011 at 9:14 pm
“The Irish State is a sinking ship and academics need to escape on lifeboats labelled ‘University Charters for use when Academic Scholarship is put at risk from the State, Church or private interests’. ”
Ever cross the authors mind that the reason the Irish State is a sinking ship is because of the quality of academics who populated and presided over every bank, quango and government department from Malin Head to Mizen Head.
All that is happening here is that chickens are coming home to roost! Take solace from the fact that these solutions are being designed by your former students.
March 13th, 2011 at 9:21 pm
@Robert
Ah, so it’s OUR fault. Glad you cleared that up
Tell me, who was the academic running fas? Anglo? Aib? The civil service? They slip my mind…
March 13th, 2011 at 9:28 pm
@ Brian Lucey
Well you certainly didn’t help:
In an analysis prepared for mortgage company Homeloan Management Limited in December 2005, Prof Lucey dismissed the notion of an unsustainable property bubble and forecast the Irish housing market would continue to grow at a “modest but still significant pace”. He also identified more scope for increased mortgage lending by financial institutions by means of subprime mortgages, 100 per cent mortgages and equity-release loans.
March 13th, 2011 at 9:29 pm
@ Robert Br..
Taking that post with the bitterness within it, and moving on…
Thats what I’m supposed to do???
Or
Was there an academic quota for boards???
Who are the chickens?
Where is the roost?
By the way, teacher training college isnt the only place with students….
March 13th, 2011 at 9:47 pm
@ CP
How long does BL have to wear that sackcloth?
He deserves to be told?
March 13th, 2011 at 10:07 pm
What sackcloth? Those that drag it out place themselves in the “idiotic reflexive ad hom can’t actually debate the issue at hand” camp
It’s very useful.
March 13th, 2011 at 10:28 pm
@ BL
I would have thought it was on topic to point out that there was a failing on the side of some academics during the ‘boom’ and you weren’t blameless as your comment seems to make out, though I don’t go along with the ‘chickens are coming home to roost’ nonsense by Robert Browne. Also relevant is that you don’t have all the answers, something the lack of humility in some of your commentary doesn’t portray too well.
March 13th, 2011 at 10:45 pm
Cp
Nope. Give your views on the ECF…not me.
You do have views? That’s why your here, right? You’ve read Pauls post and Colm and Desmond and Ferdinand and your view are …?
Or else skink off to politics.Ie and play ad hom anon poster games there. Ecf…views on
March 13th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
The question of what people did in the boom is not relevant to the theme of the thread which should relate to how an adequate university sector can be maintained in difficult times. However it is noteworthy that the government has seen fit to send for academics such as Patrick Honohan or Niamh Brennan to mop up the damage.
March 13th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
“However it is noteworthy that the government has seen fit to send for academics such as Patrick Honohan or Niamh Brennan to mop up the damage.”
Was a qualification in Irish necessary? Were the jobs advertised internationally?
March 13th, 2011 at 11:07 pm
@ Brian Lucey
Was wondering what your earlier refs to ‘ecf’ was all about ………. viewed one snippet of how one is to fill in the blanks etc …………… one word: MAD.
Reminds one of the fabled R&D manager who wanted detail on the outcomes before the project was even set up!!!!!! Looks like he got a nixer as a konsultant to all Nedeen’s Intell-lecturals in the last cabinet. No one seems to be able to cope with the beauty of uncertainty these days, or even to conceptualise it ……..
Blind Biddy is sending you a 2nd hand bazooka, slightly oiled and rarely used, via express post. Use it. Revolution has to start somewhere: prove me wrong and let it be in the Irish HEIs ……..
March 13th, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Charge of sack cloth withdrawn
Armour restored!
March 13th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
@BL
My humble opinion on the ‘employment control framework’ is that it’s self defeating. One would have to wonder how such a document was thought to tie in with the ‘Knowledge economy’?
I totally agree with Paul on the need to decouple the university system from a sinking ship but one would have to ask how many parents of middle class Chinese kids would want their kids attending lectures in a country that
a) Has failed in running it’s own affairs.
b) Might have to reneged on a state guarantee.
c) Has universities whose ratings pale in comparison to other English speaking countries, despite the size of universities not being linked to excellence.
d) Has universities whose staff illegally give themselves pay increases.
e) Has a top university whose associate professor of finance can’t spot the asset bubbles of asset bubbles in their own backyard.
f) Has poorer infrastructure, weather and higher living costs that other English speaking countries.
March 14th, 2011 at 12:23 am
Only messing about (e) Brian, just thought i’d sneak it in for a laugh. I’ll replace it with:
e) high fees:
Take the MBA at Smurfit. €30,000. According to this:
http://rankings.ft.com/exportranking/global-mba-rankings-2011/pdf
it’s the 78th best course.
It cost €30,000.
The 2nd best Harvard Business School costs $53,000/€38 165 including health insurance. I know where I’d send young Cheng.
On a side note, who is paying these fees? I would place a wager that the semi-states/public secotr have a disproportionate level of MBA holders. If I was a middle manager and knew I could get one of these bank rolled, why wouldn’t I, insulate me against possible tough times ahead and sure the state is paying.
March 14th, 2011 at 1:24 am
This verbose post can be simply boiled down to - So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.
As a dolphin that’s a strategic move, as an earth-bound public servant, it’s Vogon poetry to my ears!
Just remember to make your towel a white one - easier for surrendering that way.
March 14th, 2011 at 5:49 am
The ECF is a disaster for research/innovation. I am a PI. I have won some hard earned funding. I want to employ some of our best young Post Doctoral people for a 3 year period. I need to hire within a fixed timeframe according to my contract. I need to attract the best people from a global pool so I need to offer an attractive salary in line with international norms and the experience level required by the position. The ECF will make this almost impossible.
I have devoted most of my 26 year academic career teaching and researching in Ireland and am amazed and frustrated that a Quango such as the HEA can attempt to scupper the fine advances made by talented researchers in this country largely funded by SFI over the last 10 years.
I suspect that the present government know little of the detail constituting ECF11, and if they did they would find another more effective and less harmful way of regulating numbers in the University sector.
I am not an economist. I have no magic answers, but I merely speak as a front line PI trying to keep a world class research activity on the road in very difficult times.
March 14th, 2011 at 8:59 am
This is the most important line in this post: ‘Frontline lecturers’ salaries now only account for 25 per cent of the overall cost of the sector, when we include the overheads of Quangos’.
Those of us working in the sector have been aware of this for years and in view of the shortage of funding for the sector it urgently needs to be addressed. The facts are particularly the three largest universities of the state operate a central bureaucracy so large it would raise blushes in the HSE. The emphasis on reducing staff numbers via early retirements and non renewal of contracts has worsened this situation as most of the people who have left are academics. Thus services to students and research has suffered and more pressure has been piled on remaining academics to plug these gaps.
As for the HEA, I have made this point before on this forum, but it bears repeating: why do we need a separate organisation to mediate between seven universities and the Department of Education? It is a complete waste of money and should be shut down.
March 14th, 2011 at 9:14 am
Careful what ye wish for folks.
Fees: Great idea, but just be aware that the payers may be a tad intolerant of some of the dreadful pap that passes for contemporary third level teaching!
Productivity: BlackBoard, PowerPoint + JStore. No need for those pesky 09:00 or 17:00 lectures any more. Am I missing something here?
Research: Has to be separated away from teaching function. Two completely different processes.
Reforms at third-level. Yes, long overdue. Academics themselves failed to initiate and drive the necessary reforms, so now its the Beancounters turn. Ye are going to get what ye do not wish for, but perhaps what is somewhat deserved.
BpW
March 14th, 2011 at 9:16 am
[...] out the twitter hashtag #ecf11 for the latest news, as well as Paul Walsh on Irish Economy, Colm Kearney (business prof running for TCD provost) and the University Diary of Ferdinand von [...]
March 14th, 2011 at 10:21 am
There appears to be a credibility issue here.
Is it all the fault of the administrators who elbowed their way to the public spending trough as greedily as everyone else?
Anyone wonder how all the extra pension years for example were financed or not?
We had a classic case with the so-called ‘Smart Economy’ project: amateur politicians with enterprise agency heads in the amen corner and beneficiaries of the large scale research funding raising no public doubts about a policy where last December Brian Cowen could term the decision of an American venture capital company to open an office in Dublin a ’significant coup’ — after the National Pensions Reserve Fund invested $50m in it.
Mike Lyons above refers to problems with the HEA with approval of funding.
Academic staff can find themselves in conflict of interest situations, which in the past has seldom been a concern in Ireland but it should.
Innovation: Ireland’s ’smart economy’ strategy, universities and free-lunch entrepreneurship:
http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1021295.shtml
March 14th, 2011 at 10:52 am
Is it possible that the universities and the technology institutes come together and agree mergers leading to leaner and fewer cost centres. This might entail reductions in staff or reductions in salaries, or both. But if the emphasis is on preserving the enjoyable option of pursuing one’s hobby, are there any other exchequer neutral options that should be explored?
March 14th, 2011 at 12:17 pm
@ The Alchemist:
Spot on! Except its a very, very sore spot. Too many chiefs, precious few indians. No one (apart from a few contrarians) at the top levels of the third-level tower would even countenance this. What did Kissinger say about academic politics? “So awful, because the stakes were so small! (or something along that line).
“This might entail reductions in staff or reductions in salaries, or both.”
Spot on x2
Ooooh dear! Reality bites!
BpW
March 14th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
@the Alchemist. Obviously the HSE analogy I mentioned in my previous post has really inspired you. Establishing a huge, unwieldy HSE type organisation in the university sector which takes years to bed down is the last thing we need.
What we need in proper reform of the organisations we do have, including academic contracts, but also serious efforts to address the discrepancy between the numbers of front line staff (including many administrative staff by the way) and non front line staff.
March 14th, 2011 at 12:47 pm
And why are you folks operating in accordance with a holiday system devised for agricultural work?
Why is your capital equipment idle for 6 months of the year?
In these times, throw off the conservative shackles and surprise Ireland by avoiding thze tired old crutch: ‘The Government should…’
The late American historian Daniel Boorstin, wrote in an essay, “The Amateur Spirit and its Enemies,” published in his book “Hidden History”: “In the United States today there is hardly an institution or a daily activity where we are not ruled by the bureaucratic frame of mind — caution, concern for regularity of procedures, avoidance of the need for decision” all of which, Boorstin suggested, was best summed up - - “on a sign over the desk of a French civil servant: ‘Never do anything for the first time’.”
March 14th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
And why are you folks operating in accordance with a holiday system devised for agricultural work?
Why is your capital equipment idle for 6 months of the year?
In these times, throw off the conservative shackles and surprise Ireland by avoiding the tired old crutch: ‘The Government should…’
The late American historian Daniel Boorstin, wrote in an essay, “The Amateur Spirit and its Enemies,” published in his book “Hidden History”: “In the United States today there is hardly an institution or a daily activity where we are not ruled by the bureaucratic frame of mind — caution, concern for regularity of procedures, avoidance of the need for decision” all of which, Boorstin suggested, was best summed up - - “on a sign over the desk of a French civil servant: ‘Never do anything for the first time’.”
March 14th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
“Why is your capital equipment idle for 6 months of the year?”
It’s not. Get real. Your confusing research intensive universities with IT’s with secondary schools.
March 14th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Perhaps some definitions would help the discussion.
Front-line staff = my job.
Non Front-line staff = your job.
March 14th, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Duplicate arose by accident as a stray symbol got into the name field; delete second post
March 14th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
@Paul Walsh
You wrote: “Frontline lecturers’ salaries now only account for 25 per cent of the overall cost of the sector, when we include the overheads of Quangos.
What’s the source of this information?
March 14th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Universities teach and conduct research. Frontline is people who teach and conduct research. A simple proposal for those not teaching or conducting research is for other units to identify exactly how they facilitate the conduct of the teaching or research. Many traditional roles in admin in student registration, exams etc can make a reasonable case that they provide services requires to support teaching, although their efficiency is open to question. Some more recent expansions of highly paid admin woud have real problems justifying their existence in such a review.
March 14th, 2011 at 1:14 pm
DD : excellent post. Michael H : why not come onto a university campus in, say, June or July, and look…less anecdotes, prejudgements, impressions…look.
March 14th, 2011 at 1:15 pm
@ Brian Lucey
It’s you who needs to ‘get real’ not me!
The knee-jerk reaction of the conservative status quo is typical.
I may be older than you but I have a good memory; herewith comment from Colm McCarthy last September:
“The first stick of chalk since mid-May will be deployed in most of these institutions over the next few days.
On average, there is no teaching for about fifteen weeks in summer. What other industry would leave capital stock idle on such a scale?
Is Trinity College in Dublin the only city-centre university in Britain or Ireland without a night-school?”
March 14th, 2011 at 1:51 pm
@Michael Hennigan
quoting colm mccarthy
“Is Trinity College in Dublin the only city-centre university in Britain or Ireland without a night-school?”
Really? That’s a regression from the past. My father got his Trinity IT degree at night school in the 1970s.
Speaking of which, why do all courses start only with academic or calendar years? Including courses for mature/night school? For those whose employment varies and wish to do bits and pieces upgrades to their skills, there’s no ability for them to do so. The pacing is set by the academic institution, not by the student. Tertiary and post-tertiary education for the mature student in employment without employer support is practically non-existent. Please prove me wrong, it would get me off this board…!
March 14th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Being perhaps too familiar with various third level instittuions, TCD and NUIM is the only one in my experience that has run academic programs during the summer . Having said that, the program (www.Networkmaths.ie) finished last summer.
I exclude language /cultural programs for foreign students, becuase most of them are teenagers anyway.
I agree with CMcC and MH - The Irish third level has to be more active in the summer.
March 14th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
@ dearg doom
“Universities teach and conduct research. Frontline is people who teach and conduct research. A simple proposal for those not teaching or conducting research is for other units to identify exactly how they facilitate the conduct of the teaching or research.”
I was thinking about your point, which I appreciate is made consisely, particularly in relationship to my own College, TCD. There has to be more to it than that, I think, or you may as well sack the groundskeepers, disband DUCAC, put the whole thing online along with the library and declare it the TCD learning experience. It could be open 24 hours a day too. There is more to the defence of a university than productivity. Samuel Beckett learned about the need to go on, for ever not out, on the cricket field.
The experience of attending University is more holistic than a set of learning outcomes and should be a place to play, explore, experiment, learn develop as a human being in an evironment conducive to same. TCD’s own ethos as a a place where the informed individual viewpoint, with a national and international outlook, engaged with the world but sceptical of power, should also be cherished.
March 14th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Surely we recognise that there is more to being a University Professor than the classes alone?
Do we think there no discernible difference between the purely academic roles of teachers and professors?
All the respect in the world to teachers who must explain (rather than preach?) the difference bewteen Oligopoly and Monopoly to classes of 25+ hormonal students (many of whom may not want to be there).
However, surely you expect Professors to be pushing the envelope somewhat in their chosen field rather than simply ‘teaching from the textbook’ all year round?
March 14th, 2011 at 4:29 pm
I am in the UCD Business School, we have courses in the evenings, Saturdays and increasingly in the summer and our Masters programmes operate 12 months of the year, albeit based on the academic year. Not to the extent everyone would like, perhaps, but there is little incentive in the present system to do this kind of thing. Bringing in more students does little to attract more resources needed to cater for them as most is diverted to overhead and while there may be a general public objective to provide more relevant courses this does not translate to any encouragement on the ground. Using the plant better might be more customer friendly, but would not increase outputs as there is no willingness to fund extra staff for this purpose, just as the HSE has state of the art wards that remain closed.
March 14th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
This is great gas. Any of you guys know what a Concept Map is? Why is it useful? Why are teaching and research are two, completely different, activities? Some of your comments are not encouraging.
Learning, any subject takes time - lots of it. The 80/20 Rule applies. Takes 80% of available time to learn - in a meaningful manner, 20% of the subject matter. Even four years of undergrad college may be insufficient for a novice learner to build up a meaningful set of concepts to achieve a minimal mastery of their chosen subject. That’s why you had long ‘fallow’ periods. It wasn’t to spend the time ’shootin-da-breeze’ - though most of us did exactly that! Some had to work to pay fees. Nowadays, work is used to sustain a lifestyle, not lifesupport. And if fees are re-introduced, you get . . . ??? As I said above, be real careful what you wish for.
There are three separate, but somewhat interrelated process in third-level:ADMINISTRATION, research and ……………. teaching (this last should be in 2 point font size to signify the proper relationship). Correct me if you think I’m wrong about these - but be careful! This hierachy may have implications for no-reform.
Now here’s an issue: Lecture attendances. In some subjects it is absymal. And the lazy jerks are getting free tuition. Any solutions?
This thread is heading into a beautiful, soupy, bog.
BpW
March 14th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
I may be missing the point, but isn’t the thrust of the argument in this post:
“The money is running out! We need alternative sources to keep us in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed!”
If your research and teaching is as good as you seem to think it is then this shouldn’t present a problem, no?
So… work away lads!
Unplug from the State’s teat and fund those benchmarked academic salaries and pensions from the sweat of your brow.
March 14th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
The 9th Level Ireland has the full text of the ECF below. This proposes direct state micro-control of all hiring in the universities, including funds that come from external grants. Are any of the people gloating about academics taking a hit on this post even partly concerned by such a development?? It makes us a laughing stock.
I know its asking a lot of people who troll blogs looking to start false arguments but please read this document to get a sense of why this (and not salary and expenditure cuts) has been causing concern to people who are most committed to research in Ireland. Its just a killer.
http://bit.ly/hrGJCu
March 14th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
““The money is running out! We need alternative sources to keep us in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed!”
Those putting this argument should also put forward their theories on how high international standards can be maintained with funding that is below those standards. Perhaps they believe that it doesn’t matter, but this is never said explicitly, instead the “information society” drum is sounded without any intention to do anything about those who answer its call.
March 14th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
This is a national tragedy - education is the frontier of success for any country. It even seems that cutting on spending for education is the first big signal of nation in trouble. I can only say I hope the Irish will stay in Ireland for their studies, because without their experitise in the future this country will be in greater mess it already is.
March 14th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
@ Peter
March 14th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Reposting reply with block quotes fixed.
@ Peter
Seeing as that was my paraphrasing of Paul Walsh’s argument then may I refer you to the start of his proposed solutions in the post above:
March 14th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
WGU
“Unplug from the State’s teat and fund those benchmarked academic salaries and pensions from the sweat of your brow.”
Glad to… heres the problem. The state.wont.let.us…..
now, if you can solve the problem, let us know. How to charge for fees when the state wont let you… discuss.
Really , i suspect at this stage most would gladly walk IF we could. And, no, its not simple. Read the universities act 1997.
Michael H
You do, actually, know that there is more to universities than undergraduate teaching? You do know that, dont you? Youve heard of master students, research, doctoral students, all those yokes? FFS….
March 14th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Undergraduate fees, international students and international funding all have a role to play. However the first is a purely political decision. There seems to be little real interest in international students other than in hiring lots of admin people. In UCD my colleagues and I have campaigned for years to have the main website reorganised from its present turgid alphabetic list of postgrad courses to a simple filtering mechanism where a prospective student can indicate their undergrad qualifications and receive only a list of the subset of courses for which they are eligible. Nobody puts forward any reason why this addition to the website would not be helpful, but it is never done (we have done it in the Business school for our own stuff). I believe that it would make more difference than any of the jetsetting admin people hired, good as these may be.
As for international funding, the implications of the ECF for this have been discussed many times.
March 14th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
@Brian Lucey
This kinda defeats all of Paul’s post then, no?
So is this merely a post raging against the dying of the light?
Personally speaking, I can see no issue in Universities charging fees - they just have to develop new brands and product lines not covered by the State’s dead hand and drive the fee payers to this learning model.
How to fix your problem? Simple:
- Develop a new commercial spin-off and call it Trinity Ireland Tertiary Scholars.
- Create new courses that are delivered on-line and on-demand - 24/7/365.
- Populate with eager fee-payers.
- Recognise all graduates for post-grad TCD courses.
- PROFIT!
Where do I post my consultancy bill?
March 14th, 2011 at 7:13 pm
@Brian Woods
You wrote: “Now here’s an issue: Lecture attendances. In some subjects it is absymal. And the lazy jerks are getting free tuition. Any solutions?”
I’ve got a modest one on my blog here: http://ernieballsblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/two-birds-one-stone/
March 14th, 2011 at 8:06 pm
@ EB: Love those tracks!
Fees might cure the non-attendance issue. But its a sledge to crack a nut. I brought it up ’cause to me it represents a manifest failure of corporate governance by the college admin. They could, and should, insist on mandatory attendances. They simply could not be bothered. That sends what sort of message? Yep, I thought so.
The plagerism and student disclipine regs are detailed, draconian and enforced. That say something else?
Irish third-level colleges have a tad of reforming to do. Not likely. So you get a bunch of bleaters. Now if I saw Hugh Brady and other CEOs out on a picket line in front of DoEd -that would grab my attention. Likely?
Bring back fees and guess what? Enrollments decline. That’s what these turkeys are advocating. Less jobs for themselves. Or am I missing something?
What did that former Chancellor say “Like being savaged by a dead sheep”.
BpW
March 14th, 2011 at 10:00 pm
@Peter @Liam - you have put your fingers on the key problem with the current university ‘reform’ programme - it provides no incentives for people who could actually create additional income for the universities to do so. In fact it provides lots of disincentives.
This is the scenario those of us in the university sector face:
- Don’t expect a promotion for the additional work involved in winning research grants/ attracting additional students.
- Do expect to earn the same as your colleague who hasn’t bothered to put in any additional work and 20 per cent less than what you did last year.
- Do sign a legally binding grant agreement with the European Commission/ Welcome Thrust/ whoever but don’t expect any control over decisions regarding hiring people to help you implement the research.
-In fact, you probably won’t be allowed to spend the funding for salaries at all. Just do the research yourself on top of your day job or breech the terms of the contract.
- of course should you fail to fulfill the terms of the grant you’ll look like an idiot in front of the consortium of colleagues from accross the EU you assembled to win the grant and they will never invite you to work with them again.
Faced with this scenario who in their right mind would bid for research funding? Soon no one will bother.
March 14th, 2011 at 10:09 pm
@Peter
“In UCD my colleagues and I have campaigned for years to have the main website reorganised from its present turgid alphabetic list of postgrad courses to a simple filtering mechanism where a prospective student can indicate their undergrad qualifications and receive only a list of the subset of courses for which they are eligible. Nobody puts forward any reason why this addition to the website would not be helpful, but it is never done (we have done it in the Business school for our own stuff).”
Um, what makes your automagic system able to decide that my work experience makes me not suitable for your business (or any other) courses?
You do realise that the majority of people currently working in the private sector do not have formal qualifications in the jobs they currently do? That many people have no undergraduate qualifications, but are suitable for post-graduate specialisation? Don’t tell me you’d expect a project manager with ten year’s experience and ten years before that as a developer to do an undergraduate degree first?
@Brain Lucey
“Youve heard of master students, research, doctoral students, all those yokes? ”
For which you get fees, yes? Like some 12k for an MSc in Project Management from UCD business school.
So if we are talking about fees, we are talking about undergraduate.
For which you get a capitation grant, yes? So that should go for paying for the education of undergraduates. The admin costs should be covered by the registration fees, no?
March 15th, 2011 at 12:02 am
What is happening to the autonomy of universities to manage their own operations is a predictable consequence of their managements decision to allow Irish State funding to dwarf all other sources. Those with weakest tenure who deliver most of the ‘billable product’ - teaching hours and research deliverables, i.e. postdocs and contract academic staff - are being trimmed disproportionately. This is hard to avoid in an environment where a ’sole trader’ mentality is encouraged and which tolerates extensive ‘bed-blocking’ by conservative senior staff of leadership positions. Quality of service problems will damage hard-earned reputations quite quickly.
There are no easy answers, as in all public sector admin reformations, due to the many internal policy and regulatory conflicts baked into existing systems of admin, as well as a legion of conflicts of interest between admin staff, academic staff and students. Large scale reform initiatives in Irish public bodies have always been defeated by these.
The best that can be done perhaps, is:
1. to increase transparency about who adds what value and who gets what reward
2. to aim for a (theoretical) ideal of no fulltime ‘managers’ or ‘administrators’ by designing performance management systems which disproportionately reward those who add value and are self-managing.
3. to actively engage underexploited resources such as alum networks and gradually diminish the financial leverage of the state. One way to expedite this is by outsourcing marketing and brand asset management to private companies and acting on their advice.
Gradually over time ‘performers’ do better than ‘passengers’ (who are also discouraged from joining), while proportionately-reduced state funding shifts the balance of power in favour of the university own leadership.
March 15th, 2011 at 7:01 am
@ Brian Lucey
A defensive producer mentality is the default one in most areas of modern life; wonder why Apple has become the world’s most valuable tech company? Would it have anything to do with passion combined with the centrality of user preferences?
I was the first of my family to go to university and more important for me than formal education was that pompous prats further up the economic pyramid could not look down and ask: ‘What do you know?’
It would be easy to say more but I will pass.
@ Tony Owens
You make some interesting points.
My experience of secondary school and university was of many middle aged men bored with their jobs and maybe with life; one of my inspiring lecturers was Bryan MacMahon, who later quit as a professor of law to become a judge. Most stay.
One lecturer in economics told me that he had given up on the subject years before and at lectures he sounded like an old farmer reading the ‘Cork Examiner’ aloud to his wife.
In many jobs which people choose at a young age, boredom, resentment etc sets in for possibly a large number but in teaching there is exposure to a lot of young people and this problem can have a greater impact than in other jobs.
Who could not have been impressed with the passion of Marcus du Sautoy, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, who in the BBC series, ‘The Story of Maths’ showed how the subject should be taught.
A person can have a long ‘peer reviewed’ list and be an idiot.
People should get out of the ’sheltered workshop’ mode more often.
March 15th, 2011 at 8:02 am
@ MH-ff:
“A person can have a long ‘peer reviewed’ list and be an idiot.”
Yes, they are know as Ignorant Experts.
“People should get out of the ’sheltered workshop’ mode more often.”
Some try and succeed, others do not. Hard to put one’s finger on the problem (its multifaceted) but a high level of job specializiation and the accompanying personal and psychic ’sunk costs’ might be part of it. The other aspect (in some institutions) is the almost complete lack of personal control over what you do - inside of the classroom excepted. And even here you could have a problem.
@TO: The Boyer Commission Report (if my memory serves me correctly): ‘Scholarship Revisited’ which dealt with third-level reforms in the US.
The academic administrations in Irish universities and colleges were (still are, by the sounds of it) technically and intellectually incapable of driving change. They could understand the difference between formal authority and functional authority. They are almost completely lacking in the latter, so they had to rely on former. They preside over a deeply fossilized, self-constructed structure. The ‘reforms’ they are going to be handed out are ‘deserved’ in some measure. They are immune from direct impacts.
As I mentioned in other posts, one of the principal difficulties with modern third-level education is the lack of separation between undergrad teaching and academic research. Actually most of what is claimed as research is not really research at all. These two activities are so completely different that any assertion that they are a critical pair is without any merit. The confusion lies in the inability to recognise the difference between a subject expert, who knows a lot about a little, as opposed to a subject scholar, who knows a lot about a lot. No third level academic is ever given tenure because they have a good teaching record. None! This tells you all you need to know.
Seems that minds may be starting to concentrate - on the virtual images in their rear-view mirrors!
BpW
March 15th, 2011 at 9:57 am
An additional point to consider in the state muscling in on academic appointments must surely be the CID fiasco.
So you get funding for someone for a two year project and you appoint someone bright. After three years, the funding for that project stream has dried up. The bright fellow is now a permanent employee and you are stuck with him. Meanwhile the new funding is coming for projects outside his area of expertise…
March 15th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
@hoganmahew
I don’t think you have the time frames right for when employees on CID have a right to be considered permanent. I believe it’s after 4 years, not 2 or 3.
March 15th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
I remember walking among the leafy environs of Dartry, Rathmines, and Palmerstown Park in the 70s, admiring the large redbrick family homes and marvelling, in so far as one can marvel introspectively, at the earning capacity of anyone owning such fine properties. Not too many years later, I discovered that several of the same properties were owned by public servants, professors in UCD and elsewhere.
Ah, yes, we have own own gentry alright…
March 15th, 2011 at 5:04 pm
@Ernie Ball
“I don’t think you have the time frames right for when employees on CID have a right to be considered permanent. I believe it’s after 4 years, not 2 or 3.”
You’re right, thanks.
Still, the point applies; there are a number of Irish education institutes (along with hospitals, schools, etc.) who have gotten into unwanted headcount trouble with this. See http://www.labourcourt.ie/labour/labcourtweb.nsf/cb8265a3e1c5c3f180256a01005bb359/80256a770034a2ab802575590035955a?OpenDocument for example.
March 16th, 2011 at 11:06 pm
@Gavin I fully agree about universities having a broader role in society and of course people who contribute to these roles are valuable. I just suspect that there are people who don’t contribute to any goal other than one set by themselves.
While there is some good comment here, much of it causes me to despair, as does the general tone of discussion in Ireland generally in these straightened times. The debate invariably comes down to to “my lecturer 20 years ago was really boring” or “30 years ago I met somebody who thought that an academic had a bigger house than them”. It is a serious problem that a country that has identified education as relevant to its economic future also has no concept of a strategy to follow for its third level sector. Any plans seem based on stereotypes or based on the idea that controls required for the HSE should be extended to universities as well. I think the time has come not only for the graduates to emigrate but also those that teach them.