An insider's guide to education
* The Government is due to unveil its jobs initiative today, and Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn will be briefing the press about how the education system will contribute to recovery.The Government is due to unveil its jobs initiative today, and Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn will be briefing the press about how the education system will contribute to recovery.There is much to be done. It was fascinating to hear the head of an Irish high-tech recruitment company on Newstalk’s breakfast programme last week talking about his difficulty in finding Irish graduates with the necessary skills.
Justin Keatinge of Version 1, who has just announced plans to create 180 jobs, said his company often struggled to fill IT vacancies. There have also been complaints from big employers about how hard it is to recruit multilingual graduates.
How long must we wait for progress? Students take technology at Leaving Cert, but there are no incentives to boost take-up beyond its current meagre level. As for computer skills, Ireland’s school IT infrastructure ranks among the worst in the OECD. As for language skills, there are are still no orals in Junior Cert foreign-language courses and almost no foreign-language instruction at primary level.
* Some good news: Irish universities performed well in the first global rankings in medicine, biological sciences and psychology last week.
The QS world rankings in these key areas show that Trinity College Dublin ranked inside the top 50 for psychology, at 48. University College Dublin is ranked in the second 50 in psychology.
In medicine, TCD is ranked between 51-100, UCD 101-150 and University College Cork 151-200.
In biological sciences, TCD is ranked 51-100, UCD and UCC 101-150 and NUI Galway 151-200.
The next rankings from QS, in maths, physics, chemistry and environmental sciences later this month, should be still more interesting.
* Can this be true? We hear a primary-school teacher offered a €170,000 mortgage by one of the big banks found the offer was scaled back a week later. The reason? The bank said it was not sure that the Croke Park deal, ruling out any public-service pay cuts until 2014, would survive. All very worrying for teachers and other public servants.
* More good reviews for Ruairí Quinn after his first meeting with the seven university presidents. One participant said, “At last, there was a sense of real engagement by a Minister in the higher-education sector.” The meeting ranged across all the issues of concern to the college heads, including the dreaded employment control framework, which sets new limits on research posts, and the CAO points system.
Amendments to the framework will shortly be unveiled in what will be seen as a big victory for Ned Costello (right), who represents the college presidents in the Irish Universities Association. Curiously, there was no discussion of the funding issue. It appears the €2,000 student contribution will remain in place. For now, all that talk about a student-loan scheme seems to have been put on the back burner.
Any gossip? E-mail teacherspet@irishtimes.com
