YES: John Powersays our failure to produce the engineers the economy needs demands a radical short-term step. NO: Brian Mooneysays tinkering with the points system will achieve nothing, but making maths and science more interesting to students will get results.
YES:ENGINEERS IRELAND runs many excellent programmes to develop the interest of primary and post-primary school pupils in engineering and science, including "Steps to engineering" and the recent "Engineered! A Week of Wonder".
But despite our best efforts, and those of many others, including the Government, we have still not been able to attract enough of the brightest and best secondary school students to study engineering.
The reality is that we have not been able to compete with medicine and other faculties to attract talent in greater numbers to our engineering courses. This may be because today's students demand much more from college life than their parents' generation and find the structure of engineering courses too rigid and demanding. It could also be because students have not been sufficiently exposed to the possibilities offered by a career in engineering throughout their secondary schooling and because, unlike medical and legal television programmes, there are no popular dramas that glamorise engineering.
It could also be that the monetary potential of a career in engineering has not shone through to students and their parents, as it has, say, with medicine. Even though engineering is amongst the top paying careers, with one international statistic claiming electrical engineering as the third highest paying profession in the United States, engineering pay is not negotiated in a highly public way, unlike doctors and their consultants' negotiations.
Whatever the reasons, the issue has to be addressed and addressed now. If, as the Government desires, Ireland is to become a top five global economy by 2020, the country needs to have a year-on-year increase of 7 per cent in the number of engineering graduates. But in Ireland, students are not going into engineering in the numbers required.
Because of our size, we cannot hope to overly influence global economic trends. However, we can ensure our continued growth and sustainability by being flexible, responsive and making provision in what we do for a multi-dimensional economy without over-reliance on any individual sector. Without the appropriate leadership from key stakeholders, and in particular Government, this vision for 2020 will never be realised.
The scale of the challenge is all the more demanding with the numbers sitting the Leaving Cert actually falling each year for the foreseeable future and the number taking higher level maths, physics and chemistry getting smaller year after year.
In last September's Junior Cert maths results, the numbers failing at higher level increased again.
In the meantime, Ireland continues to attract more and more high-tech companies, to the point where now the country has seven of the top 10 global ICT companies based here, nine of the world's top 10 pharmaceutical companies and 15 of the top 25 biomedical device companies, all of them requiring high numbers of engineers.
The job prospects for engineers have never been better and the opportunities for engineers to assume leadership positions are vast. However, without a much stronger pipeline of engineering graduates here in Ireland these opportunities will be missed.
Before the situation becomes a crisis and we give away our competitive advantage to other countries, we have to find ways to bridge this skills gap. Yes, Engineers Ireland and indeed, all the stakeholders, including Government, have to work together to better demonstrate the hugely positive impact of engineering on the world and the real opportunities for leadership roles offered by a career as an engineer. With the educational requirement for chartered engineers being raised to masters level and courses increasing in length to five years, we now have the ideal opportunity to reshape engineering education at third level, in both the institutes of technology and the universities, not just to make it more attractive to students, but to meet the future needs of a changing economy.
However, a radical short-term step is also going to have to be taken. Bonus points were offered up to two decades ago, and we need to go back to this system urgently to motivate students to study maths and the physical sciences. The Minister for Education and the Government have regularly talked about this, but it needs to be finally indicated that there will be bonus points for maths and the physical sciences for those deciding to do engineering courses in the academic year beginning this autumn.
I think the bonus points should not be instituted forever, just for a period of years until we address the challenge. We are in a highly competitive market for talent.
We need more of the innovators and the free thinkers to choose engineering if we are to develop the technical solutions needed to enhance the quality of life in this country as the population on the island grows to eight million people by 2020.
John Power is the director general of Engineers Ireland, the professional body for engineers in Ireland.
NO:IF THE argument in favour of introducing bonus points for maths or science subjects is that it will increase the numbers taking these subjects, or taking them at higher level, then the argument is fatally flawed. This for the simple reason that, in my 30-plus years as a teacher and guidance counsellor, CAO points have never been the determining factor in students' choice of subjects, or of the level at which they study them.
All second-level students start with a common first-year curriculum, which covers the core subjects of Irish, English, maths, plus a number of other subjects. Towards the end of first year, two processes take place. Students drop a number of subjects, based on the fact that you cannot take all of the subjects sampled in first year on to Junior Cert level.
Secondly, students are streamed into ordinary level and higher level in maths and Irish, based on their ability. This streaming leads to a minority of students taking these subjects at higher level. Between the beginning of second year and the date of the Leaving Cert, many students will drop back to ordinary level, due to the degree of difficulty they experience in maths or Irish.
Nowhere in this equation, and most certainly not when students select their subjects and levels at the beginning of second year, are points a determining factor. Points only come into play when students begin to consider their CAO choices in the middle of their Leaving Cert programme, and by then decisions on subjects and levels are long over.
What, then, is the argument in favour of bonus points for higher-level maths and science subjects in an era when the expansion of third-level options is making points less significant? Is it that they will encourage students to apply for courses where bonus points apply, as suggested by Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin?
I do not believe that such a policy would have any effect in attracting additional applicants to disciplines such as engineering.
The number of students applying for honours Bachelor's degree programmes in engineering, which require a minimum of a grade C or higher on a higher-level maths paper, is determined by the pool of potential applicants, which is set at the end of first year in secondary school, when those students capably of studying maths at higher level are identified.
In 2007, the number of students taking higher-level maths in the Leaving Cert was 8,388, of which 80 per cent achieved a grade C or higher. This left a pool of a little more than 6,000 students who were eligible for level-eight engineering programmes. As more than half of these 6,000 students were women, who form a small proportion of engineering applicants, the number of potential male applicants was about 3,000.
To marginally increase the points score of these 6,000 candidates will have no effect in increasing their interest in engineering programmes. Any such increase would simply marginally increase the points score of every applicant, and increase the entry points accordingly. It would not bring the engineering faculties any additional applicants, which I presume would be the whole point of the exercise.
How then do you increase the interest of students in engineering, science and technology programmes?
The answer is relatively simple. You make the experience of students in these subject areas more interesting. You revise the maths curriculum to introduce more applied maths throughout the entire junior and senior cycles, from first year onwards. This process is already under way through the work of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA).
When students see the benefit of the application of maths to their own lives, they will be motivated to study maths to the highest level of their ability. I have already seen the benefits of the new science curriculum in the junior cycle, as students get to work in modernised laboratories and conduct the experiments themselves, rather than merely observe their teachers.
The number of my own students at Oatlands College, who having studied the new junior-cycle science curriculum and are currently taking chemistry and physics for the Leaving Cert, has doubled in the past two years. Why? Because they enjoyed the experience of studying the revised subject in the junior cycle.
The answer to increasing our students' interest in careers in science, engineering and technology is to make their experiences of these disciplines interesting and exciting throughout their entire school education. Thankfully, this process is well under way through the work of the NCCA and the Department of Education and Science.
Let us have the patience to wait a few years to see the benefits of these new curriculums, rather than try to use the points system to motivate students in directions they have lost interest in.
Brian Mooney is a teacher and career guidance counsellor and writes the College Choice column for The Irish Times.
Online: Join the debate at www.ireland.com/head2head
Last week, Rita Honanand Mary Hanafindebated the question: is the Department of Education failing children with autism? Here is an edited selection of your comments.
PARENTS WHO continue to pursue the ABA approach in the face of such opposition do not do so by choice. If they had a choice, they would accept the State model, go home and have a quiet life. Instead they go home, as I do and face up to such intensity of behaviour they have no option but to fight on. I can see my children under the self-injuries, under the tantrums, under the absence of self help and independence. I can see the chink of light that my home-based ABA programme has opened up. We will persevere and prevail, because the alternative is unthinkable; the loss of the person that each of my children with autism can become.
Hammie, Ireland
My son was diagnosed with autism last September. I was told that early intervention is vital and that I was lucky to have a diagnosis. When I read about ABA, I thought this is the best way to go, so I applied to the department for home tutoring and was refused, their reason being there is an "autistic unit" 25km away that would suit him. I'm expected to put my three-year-old son on a bus with complete strangers for him to attend a unit with four other children in it. He would not benefit in any way, the teacher would be just able to control the poor children and they would never learn. The Government is refusing our children the right to an appropriate education.
- Ann Marie, Ireland
In my experience (as a grandfather of an autistic child) ABA is logical, productive, child centred and tear-inducing when one sees the progress of the child and its relationship with the tutor. I now have eye contact, affection, kisses, cuddles instead of nothing, nothing and nothing - all in less than two years. The Government's "eclectic" approach reminds me of the old tradesman's description "Jack of all and master of none".
- Bartry Connolly, Ireland
The Minister is correct in my view, on certain points. Though ABA is excellent, it is not the panacea for all ills. My grievance concerns the total lack of suitable secondary school facilities. There are exactly six specialist places available to autistic children at second level in Wexford. Needless to say my son, who is 16, is so far down the waiting list he would be in his mid-20s before he became eligible.
- Gerry Huet, Ireland
Ms Hafinaclue is beginning to show some signs of autism herself. Covering her ears (to the voices of parents who know what works best for their children) and her love of repetition (re her eclectic approach).
- Margie Burns, Ireland
Interesting in the Minister's article, she uses the word "special" on more occasions than the word "autism". She obviously wants all children with autism to fit into the very wide spectrum of "special needs".
- Barry C, Ireland
In my family's experience of over 19 years dealing with the department, the attitude towards all children with special needs has been one of reluctance to support parents. Parents have to tip-toe around the system to secure resources. Our daughter was "shoehorned" into the mainstream system, take it or leave it.
- Margaret Ryan, Ireland
As a psychologist, I find it amazing that evidence-based practice is being refuted by the Minister in favour of an "all kinds of everything" approach, while the welfare and development of a child with autism is at stake. Where is the evidence, for an eclectic approach, as cited by the Minister? Since when do politicians know best about clinical issues?
- Barbara Hannigan, Ireland