"The Knowledge Economy" - A Political Myth?

Eliot Rosewater

I'm beginning to suspect this widespread term "the knowledge economy" is nothing more than a political myth. I'm starting to think that it's just an excuse for economic policies that greatly increase the cost of doing business. During the boom years Fianna Fail could dramatically hike up social welfare, public sector pay and other services, and they could pursue other policies which substantially raised the cost of living, because we're a "knowledge economy" and we can afford to be expensive.

But I'm not sure if that's true. As we saw with Dell moving to Poland, relatively low skilled jobs are still very important for this country. There's simply not enough knowledge employment here for an island full of University graduates.

Thoughts?

Eliot Rosewater

Optional substantiation: There's also the issue of free University fees, supposedly the basis of the "knowledge economy". The only problem being that they nearly achieve the opposite of what they're supposed to. It takes a lot of the motivation out of third level education, in my opinion.

As an example: I've just finished first year maths. Last week a guy I have never seen in my life came up to me, told me that he's in my course but that he's never been in, and can he please have some notes! He's not the only one either. Clearly the lack of monetary cost in his education causes him to bear no respect for it, so he dozes off for the year. Where's the knowledge in that?

Seth Brundle

We do have a knowledge economy - we all have the knowledge that our economy is fecked!

Byron85

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Optional substantiation: There's also the issue of free University fees, supposedly the basis of the "knowledge economy". The only problem being that they nearly achieve the opposite of what they're supposed to. It takes a lot of the motivation out of third level education, in my opinion.

As an example: I've just finished first year maths. Last week a guy I have never seen in my life came up to me, told me that he's in my course but that he's never been in, and can he please have some notes! He's not the only one either. Clearly the lack of monetary cost in his education causes him to bear no respect for it, so he dozes off for the year. Where's the knowledge in that?

I was in private College when I was 18 and I saw the exact same carry on there that goes on in regular Government funded Colleges/Universities i.e, people not showing up at all until the last week or so of the semester. The only reason I was there was because I won a scholarship as I wouldn't have been able to pay the fees otherwise.

ntlbell

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Optional substantiation: There's also the issue of free University fees, supposedly the basis of the "knowledge economy". The only problem being that they nearly achieve the opposite of what they're supposed to. It takes a lot of the motivation out of third level education, in my opinion.

As an example: I've just finished first year maths. Last week a guy I have never seen in my life came up to me, told me that he's in my course but that he's never been in, and can he please have some notes! He's not the only one either. Clearly the lack of monetary cost in his education causes him to bear no respect for it, so he dozes off for the year. Where's the knowledge in that?

The problem is not just the studenets.

I went back to do a course at night recently and the standard of lecturing was a disgrace.

no real knoweldge of the topic, couldn't answer questions on the subject.

Used assignments of a previous lecturer.

Out of 8, 1 was decent.

These civil servants are earning huge amounts of money, have no teaching skills and a poor level of knowedlge of the subjects.

If this is common across Irish uni's then the whole thing has to be a myth

RichardAnd

The knowledge economy, or smart economy is, in my opinion, something fabricated to give people hope, or at least the illusion of it.

The idea that Ireland can be a nation of scientists and engineers is, frankly, laughable. Putting aside the sub standard education children receive in maths and linguistics and our graduates being sub par with the US and europe, the Irish lack the dedication as a whole to excell at something like this.

Don't get me wrong, there are some seriously clever people in this country but they are the minority. Most people can just no commit to something seriously enough to become good at it unless it involves drink.

So yeah, we can have our smart economy, and it will happen the week after we all stop drinking.

p1akuw47h5r3it

ntlbell wrote: »

The problem is not just the studenets.

I went back to do a course at night recently and the standard of lecturing was a disgrace.

no real knoweldge of the topic, couldn't answer questions on the subject.

Used assignments of a previous lecturer.

Out of 8, 1 was decent.

These civil servants are earning huge amounts of money, have no teaching skills and a poor level of knowedlge of the subjects.

If this is common across Irish uni's then the whole thing has to be a myth

In my course I have a few poor lecturers who do have a good knowledge of there field, they are just poor at getting their point across. Maybe sometimes the lecturer is just poor at lecturing. AFAIK, they are not highered based on their lecturing skills but more on the amount of research papers published etc.

However I am open to correction on this.

RichardAnd

DanDan6592 wrote: »

In my course I have a few poor lecturers who do have a good knowledge of there field, they are just poor at getting their point across. Maybe sometimes the lecturer is just poor at lecturing. AFAIK, they are not highered based on their lecturing skills but more on the amount of research papers published etc.

However I am open to correction on this.

No I'd actually agree with you. I had a math lecturer who is, believe me, a genius. The guy could take maths and apply is to anything and make it work but he could just not, at all, teach.

Then there are the other class of professors. The guys with all the papers, masters and phds but whe were absent when god handed out common sense. These guys are probably worse than the above.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Nitochris

It looks like there is a conflation here between the education sector and the knowledge economy (o.p. your post clearly shows that you are aware of the difference), the knowledge economy is a floating concept and can refer to anything that policy makers want it to. My former supervisor found that there was a lot of interpretative flexibility in how it was defined, even within those industries that are part of it.

In general the discussion of the knowledge economy is tied to the idea of the "creative class" and similar concepts. Richard Florida who came up with the term linked it to a very wide grouping comprised of academia, arts and the media.

Manach

Firstly may I agree that if you pay for your education you value it, missed lectures are a loss (I found out from personal experience.)
Secondly, creating and maintaining the technical skills level to compete in the Knowledge Economy is difficult. Irish IT workers have to compete against skilled Indian/Chinese science/engineering graduates who have a lower headcount run-rate than us.

maninasia

Knowledge Economy consists of two parts, 'Knowledge' and 'Economy'. What use is knowledge without the economy characteristics. The Soviet Union had millions of technical graduates but an economy that couldn't even produce enough bread to feed it's citizens in the end.

Risk culture, hard working and willing to put in long hours, sales and marketing skills and experience, established sales channels, established worldwide brands, deep pool of integrated businesses, reasonable costs in labour and economy, world class in 2-3 industries....these are equally if more important than the knowledge bit.

There's no point complaining about the Indians and Chinese. I don't see the Swiss do that. I don't see Silicon valley do that.

In fact Ireland does pretty well in terms of IT with a lot of investment from US companies. What Ireland doesn't do well is globalised sales and marketing of products made in Ireland and produced by Irish companies.

SkepticOne

Following on from the last post.

When people talk about the knowledge economy, the "knowledge" part tends to mean knowledge of science and technology subjects the assumption being that this is they type of knowledge the country most needs.

However were this the case you would expect that the remuneration for graduates in these areas (and pursuing those areas) to be higher than, say, law, banking, finance etc. However is this the case? I think the answer is generally no and that after a few years, they fall behind these other professions.

Something doesn't add up in the rhetoric put out by politicians about the need for more people to do science and technology subjects.

I think the marketplace is telling us we're making the same mistake that the Soviets made. If we want to build up indigenous industry then no one cares if some minister says we produces x number of physics graduates or y number of engineers. This sort of language may have been relevant when we were trying to attract multinational but we need to move beyond that now.

cavedave

There is a poll running now about the greatest Irish person. There is not one scientist or engineer on the list.

It seems odd to have an economy based on science and technology when most people cannot name one current Irish scientist (with the exception of economics).

silverharp

its hard to have a true knowledge economy when more then half the economy is exempt for starters. I would have thought that from 2000 or so we wew going for the Saudi economic model of bringing in increasing numbers of people from developing countries while a new breed of Irish entrepeneur could set up such innovative companies as bouncy castle hire and window clearners with €50K 4x4's

ei.sdraob

maninasia wrote: »

The Soviet Union had millions of technical graduates but an economy that couldn't even produce enough bread to feed it's citizens in the end.

yes thank you very much. i was about to mention this

modern Cuba would be another example of this, here we have bright and highly educated people (in some cases incredibly gaining knowledge without access to modern equipment and tools) who end-up being puppets of an authoritarian regime, a regime which is interested in selling a vision of a socialist paradise while lining its own pockets

theg81der

To make something you need the ingredience and the tools!

Change the system completely! For one stop letting teenager opt out of things. Test them first to find their personal strenghts and advise them and educate them in a suitable way. We probably have a lot of amazing minds not achieving because of choices they made at 14/15 years old which is nuts! The door for people to discover their talents should be wide open.

I said this already but computers should feature heavily in schools from Primary and it should be like a dual degree with anything. Computers play a pivital role in all our jobs and futures.

AlekSmart

Change the system completely! For one stop letting teenager opt out of things. Test them first to find their personal strenghts and advise them and educate them in a suitable way. We probably have a lot of amazing minds not achieving because of choices they made at 14/15 years old which is nuts!

Theg81der has a very good point here and one which does`nt sit too well with the modern concept of "Freedom".

It also,yet again,focuses a rather withering gaze on that hoary old chesnut of Parental Responsibility,something which is a required precursor to greater general responsibility (ie: The ability to come upon an item of public ownership such as a Bus Shelter without immediately feeling the urge to destroy it)

For far too long now both the UK and Ourselves have followed a somewhat dipsy line of thinking centred on a "Light-Touch" principle which has been as unsuccessful in Social regulatory terms as it has been in Financial Regulation !

Put at it`s simplest,large numbers of our highest graded young graduates present themselves as having serious difficulty adapting to the realities of ordinary living.

Perhaps Silverharp2 is better at expressing the issue than I....

its hard to have a true knowledge economy when more then half the economy is exempt for starters. I would have thought that from 2000 or so we were going for the Saudi economic model of bringing in increasing numbers of people from developing countries while a new breed of Irish entrepeneur could set up such innovative companies as bouncy castle hire and window clearners with €50K 4x4's

p1akuw47h5r3it

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

The reason for this is that these subjects are harder than say Geography or Economics etc. Secondary school is about getting points for a course, not necessarily an education. I have just started reading this forum and a lot of the problems discussed seem to be as a result of secondary education being so poor. I have just finished school (I'm a first year in Uni) and I remember my teachers telling me how poor secondary education was. It is only now in Uni that I realise how right they were.

the reason points have fallen so low is due to more places being available for engineering degrees etc.

ntlbell

DanDan6592 wrote: »

In my course I have a few poor lecturers who do have a good knowledge of there field, they are just poor at getting their point across. Maybe sometimes the lecturer is just poor at lecturing. AFAIK, they are not highered based on their lecturing skills but more on the amount of research papers published etc.

However I am open to correction on this.

I think your right, they don't have to have _any_ teaching skills.

Considering this their main function IMHO it seems pretty bizzare.

Having endless amounts of knoweldge is useless if your not capable of passing it on.

I paid a lot of money to the course and I ended up having to watch video's etc from US uni's in order to learn the material.

MysticalRain

I think the term "Knowledge Economy" was nothing more than a way for the government to make us feel better about losing our manufacturing base to lower cost countries. Of course many of the same countries are now gobbling up our Knowledge Economy economy jobs, and the government itself has done a miserable job of providing infrastructure necessary for a thriving high tech economy - just witness the terrible state of our broadband infrastructure.

I also understand perfectly why Irish school leavers are shying away from high tech jobs. The subjects required are difficult to study, job prospects are very precarious in a heavily globalized economy, there is a lot more money to be made elsewhere.

baalthor

After the last Leaving Cert results some of the students who had scored 600 points were interviewed and asked what courses they planned to do in college. The most common replies I heard were: Medicine, Pharmacy, Occupational Therapy!.

Now, maybe these weren't representative of all the high scoring candidates but you do wonder about a system that channels students with perfect scores into careers like Pharmacy and Occupational Therapy. These are excellent careers but should you really need to have over 500 points in the Leaving to become an Occupational Therapist for example?
In the same universities where OT is offered, courses like physics, engineering and genetics have lower points requirements.

Of course the reason for this is that if you do Pharmacy, Medicine, Dentistry, OT etc, you stand a good chance of gaining a high status, permanent, pensionable job. The supply of places on these type of courses is also very limited.
If you opt for physics, engineering or genetics it's not clear what your eventual employment prospects will be.

The discussion of the knowledge economy isn't that new. I remember my geography text book from school (1980s) explaining that Ireland would have to move beyond attracting basic manufacturing jobs if it was to avoid having to compete with third world countries.
Of course, what happened in the 90s was that we actually had to compete with third world countries like India for knowledge economy jobs like software development.

RichardAnd

baalthor wrote: »

After the last Leaving Cert results some of the students who had scored 600 points were interviewed and asked what courses they planned to do in college. The most common replies I heard were: Medicine, Pharmacy, Occupational Therapy!.

Now, maybe these weren't representative of all the high scoring candidates but you do wonder about a system that channels students with perfect scores into careers like Pharmacy and Occupational Therapy. These are excellent careers but should you really need to have over 500 points in the Leaving to become an Occupational Therapist for example?
In the same universities where OT is offered, courses like physics, engineering and genetics have lower points requirements.

Of course the reason for this is that if you do Pharmacy, Medicine, Dentistry, OT etc, you stand a good chance of gaining a high status, permanent, pensionable job. The supply of places on these type of courses is also very limited.
If you opt for physics, engineering or genetics it's not clear what your eventual employment prospects will be.

The discussion of the knowledge economy isn't that new. I remember my geography text book from school (1980s) explaining that Ireland would have to move beyond attracting basic manufacturing jobs if it was to avoid having to compete with third world countries.
Of course, what happened in the 90s was that we actually had to compete with third world countries like India for knowledge economy jobs like software development.

The points system doesn't give a good representation of how good or bad a course is, just how popular it is. When I started in DCU with software engineering, it took me 300 points to get my place. At the same time, DCU were offering a 4 year course in Communications (perhaps the supreme waste of time course) for about 450 point if I remember right.

Why? Because a course like SE takes alot of time and it pretty hard, a course like communications is p!ss easy and will allow for plenty of partying without heavy course work demands.

baalthor

SkepticOne wrote: »

Following on from the last post.

When people talk about the knowledge economy, the "knowledge" part tends to mean knowledge of science and technology subjects the assumption being that this is they type of knowledge the country most needs.

This is a good point. I get the idea that the government sees the knowledge economy as:
"Let's fund lots of scientists and people in labs with white coats who will eventually invent some do-hickey that everyone in the world will want to buy!" (to paraphrase Dilbert's boss)

As you have said, there is more to the "knowledge economy" and "innovation" than the science and technology sector. The IDA probably understands this; not sure about our masters in government though.

I also suspect Ireland may have more of an advantage in the non-science based knowledge economy than in the men-in-white-coats area.

baalthor

Popularity does play a part; I remember when journalism was first offered on the CAO, it was over 500 points!

However, the medical based courses I mentioned would have pretty heavy workloads.

ei.sdraob

baalthor wrote: »

Popularity does play a part; I remember when journalism was first offered on the CAO, it was over 500 points!

is that why Irish journalists and media are so dire?

dan_d

Points are mainly based on the popularity of the course.
You also have to fulfill the minimum subject requirements though.
Witness engineering. It was 475 in my LC year (2001), but you needed a min B3 in hons LC maths, along with high grades in at least one science subject. The coursework in engineering is not for the faint-hearted, yet the points are a good 100+ lower than medicine etc. Less demand.
And science in UCD went way down to the very low 300's at one point, because there was simply less demand for it - the drop out rate was huge, as people got in who were simply unable to manage the coursework.
If points were wholly, or even mostly based on the difficulty of the coursework involved, then they would never change beyond going approx 5 points up or down.In fact, they would never go down, as that would be perceived that they course was becoming "easier", which would lead to questions about what the college was doing (which is a whole other can of worms!!).

The_Honeybadger

baalthor wrote: »

After the last Leaving Cert results some of the students who had scored 600 points were interviewed and asked what courses they planned to do in college. The most common replies I heard were: Medicine, Pharmacy, Occupational Therapy!.

Now, maybe these weren't representative of all the high scoring candidates but you do wonder about a system that channels students with perfect scores into careers like Pharmacy and Occupational Therapy. These are excellent careers but should you really need to have over 500 points in the Leaving to become an Occupational Therapist for example?
In the same universities where OT is offered, courses like physics, engineering and genetics have lower points requirements.

Of course the reason for this is that if you do Pharmacy, Medicine, Dentistry, OT etc, you stand a good chance of gaining a high status, permanent, pensionable job.

I have been saying this for quite some time, these type of jobs are just too damn attractive to our brightest young people. Medicine / pharmacy / dentistry are probably bad examples, I am talking about teaching / nursing and other jobs that are well remunerated and pensionalble. They are the jobs every mammy wants for their son / daughter, and they will be encouraged to follow these type of careers rather than taking a chance in a science / engineering or I.T. course, as these careers are probably undervalued in many ways. We simply have no hope of building a knowledge economy when this type of culture exists. The way to change this is a matter for another thread of course.

RichardAnd

mickeyk wrote: »

I have been saying this for quite some time, these type of jobs are just too damn attractive to our brightest young people.

Just because someone gets 600 points does not mean they are bright. I used to go out with a girl that got 550 points in her LC and she had about as much cop on as a 5 year old. Another guy I was friends with got 560 points and he's the kind of person who talks about Harry Potter and Dan Brown books like they are War and Peace.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

The_Honeybadger

RichardAnd wrote: »

Just because someone gets 600 points does not mean they are bright. I used to go out with a girl that got 550 points in her LC and she had about as much cop on as a 5 year old. Another guy I was friends with got 560 points and he's the kind of person who talks about Harry Potter and Dan Brown books like they are War and Peace.

Agreed, cop on is a quality you are born with. It is possible through rigid discipline and an ability to memorize large amounts of info to get 500+ in the leaving. However that will not prepare you for third level and a career in an industry that requires excellent communication and people skills for example.

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Also agree but I didn't want to go that far as we have loads of these threads already.

jmayo

RichardAnd wrote: »

The knowledge economy, or smart economy is, in my opinion, something fabricated to give people hope, or at least the illusion of it.

The idea that Ireland can be a nation of scientists and engineers is, frankly, laughable. Putting aside the sub standard education children receive in maths and linguistics and our graduates being sub par with the US and europe, the Irish lack the dedication as a whole to excell at something like this.

Don't get me wrong, there are some seriously clever people in this country but they are the minority. Most people can just no commit to something seriously enough to become good at it unless it involves drink.

So yeah, we can have our smart economy, and it will happen the week after we all stop drinking.

Ohh how true.

The whole knowledge economy is a fabrication as some other posters have mentioned to make us feel better about the fact we were loosing massive amount sof core manufacturing jobs.
Sure the cry went up "we are better than that", shure look at how many graduates we have, we are a knowledge economy.

Pity then that most of the the ones issuing these statements are donkeys who couldn't get a job cleaning the labs that they claim we will all be working in.

donegalfella wrote: »

Arguably we had some success in creating a knowledge economy in the 1990s. But over the past decade the concept has come to exist more in the fanciful imaginations of politicians than in reality.

In 2009, only 16 percent of Leaving Cert students took honours maths, an all-time low. Ten percent took honours chemistry, and 8 percent took honours physics. The points for university courses in science, technology, maths, and engineering have been plummeting for a decade—it now takes just 300 points to gain entry to a computer science degree in UCD, as compared to 445 points in 1999.

Moreover, the dropout rates for science and technology courses in this country are very high—almost 40 percent of students in sci/tech courses in DCU do not progress to their second year.

Until such statistics improve, we simply should stop dreaming of a "knowledge economy."

That really is scary and honours maths has become easier to the best of my knowledge.

I can see how the points vary depending on where the new batch of applicants believe the jobs are.
Circa 2002/2003 points for computer/electronic related courses probably fell as the ar** fell out of the real celtic tiger as the dotcom/telecoms bubble fell apart.

Simarly civil engineerings/quantity surveyor/architecture course points probably climbed post 2002 until 2008.

One argument I do have about this whole diverting the economy towards one area is I believe it does not work.
Look at UK post thatcher where manufacturing and heavy industry was obliterated.
BTW it wasn't just thatcher, the unions wrecked British industry in the 1970s.

The country lost a huge chunk of it's manufacturing companies that provied employment for normal workers, the ones who will never become scientists, chemists, engineers, etc.
For a country that led the world in engineering to abandon most of it was criminal.
UK decided that financials were the future, but look at them now.

The likes of France, Germany, Italy have hung onto engineering, manufacturing industry and these countries will probably have better long term futures than the UK.

We can't suddenly become an overnight knowledge economy or smart economy.
We need to start from scratch where we don't have the background, the dept of graduates or the real will to make the necessary short term sacrifices.

AARRRGH

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

the knowledge economy

The problem with "the knowledge economy" is the fact that is is unachievable. Most people are not capable of doing jobs which require a high level of academic ability.

For example, most people are not capable of being computer programmers.

What we need is a diverse economy with a decent education system and tax breaks for employers.

p1akuw47h5r3it

jmayo wrote: »

That really is scary and honours maths has become easier to the best of my knowledge.

Your right in saying this. I probably could have done honours Maths for the leaving Cert but didn't because there was no real point. I didn't need to do it. The course I wanted only needed pass maths and I was fine with all my other subjects so doing honours Maths would have been a waste of my time.

I know there are many students who aren't good at maths but most don't do honours because they have no real need to do it.

cleremy jarkson

I think the reason more students sat higher maths in their Leaving Cert 20 years ago, let's say, is because they had a better work ethic instilled in them growing up than the generation who sat the exam in 2009. The class of 1989 would have grown up not expecting to have any opportunities in this country unless they got the head down and worked their arses off to gain a place on one of the much more limited number college courses and hope that they could scrape by in college, hopefully with the help of a grant.


The mentality of school-aged kids in this country has become flabby; life has simply been too easy for them and they have simply been so many opportunities for them that everything about being alive just got easier.
And no, I'm not talking about extremely individual cases of family problems or whatever, which I can't possibly anticipate...I mean on average.
They get lunch money, for starts. There are lower numbers sitting the exam than there were back in 1989 as far as I know. So many bullshít pointless courses sprung up during the boom years that the points levels for every course dropped. Kids got their parents to fork out 30 quid an hour for grinds...the spoilt bastards. Leeson street easter courses...parents were happy to pay. The difficulty of hte exams have dropped enormously in recent years to accomidate for this flabby lazy attitude from students.

And before the exception case comes in (and they probably know they are the exception) yes, even for those whose parents are/ were on social welfare during the boom, they are/were much better off than their 1989 counterparts in terms of opportunities...the government practically bended over backwards to allow them access to third level education....their fees were payed, grants were given, part time jobs were plentiful....all they had to do was get a good leaving cert and bingo, sorted.

When I was in secondary a few years back only about 10% of my year sat the higher maths paper. When my brother sat it maybe a decade before, it would have been more like 30%. And the physcis and chemistry classes were packed, whereas in my time they were the emptiest 6th year classes, while biology had about 4 classes to accomidate all the stupid spoillt lazy arses not wanting to put in the effort needed to learn technical subjects.

Once again....not every single student had a bad work ethic, but 90% of them did.

maninasia

AARRRGH wrote: »

The problem with "the knowledge economy" is the fact that is is unachievable. Most people are not capable of doing jobs which require a high level of academic ability.

For example, most people are not capable of being computer programmers.

What we need is a diverse economy with a decent education system and tax breaks for employers.

I agree with this. It needs to be easier to open a business, it's not easy when tax is going up and up and the regulatory requirements increase annually.
Education needs to be sorted also, more ability testing.

There are knowledge based economies in Asia, supported by large cohorts of skilled engineers, technicians and programmers. But a lot of people don't know there are also very capable business people, logistics, planners, project managers, sales and marketing managers etc. The successful companies always have a team approach. However even in 'knowledge economies' such as Korea, Singapore, Taiwan etc. a large sector of the population does not work directly in the economy and does not benefit. There is discussion on how the economies can be made more diverse to encourage tourism and services etc.

So a diverse economy e.g. Switzerland or US (if it wasn't mismanaged) would be the ideal. These countries are more stable and give more equal chances to all members of society.

Ireland has a great tourism sector. Huge potential for developing food sectod. Education for foreign students. Services sector including online services could grow immensely in coming years due to Irish people's natural affinity with this sector. Manufacturing and new enterprise need to be in there too of course....

Ireland is a small country though, if you are good at what you do there is a high chance you could do better elsewhere or have better opportunities for advancement.
Diversity is key.


A comment on the Leeson St grinds things, I took an Easter course, it was a revelation. The teaching style and explanations were 300% ahead of anything I had learned at my local CBS. It allowed people like me to get just a touch of what many private students get everyday.
I also took honours maths and remember spending 30% of my time studying it. Incredibly difficult and time consuming yet only a very minor boost to points . No wonder students soured on it. In addition it was taught in a way that had no insight into questions such as 'Why calculus was invented'. When I went to college I could have used these equations but I had no idea they had been invented for the study of movement and gravity , speed and acceleration. I didn't know how to apply what I had learned. Pity.....

RichardAnd

AARRRGH wrote: »

The problem with "the knowledge economy" is the fact that is is unachievable. Most people are not capable of doing jobs which require a high level of academic ability.

For example, most people are not capable of being computer programmers.

What we need is a diverse economy with a decent education system and tax breaks for employers.

Agreed. Something the government and people in general fail to grasp is that a person can't really learn to be an engineering or scientist as some people are just not cut to fit that area.

I'm not saying they're stupid at all. I know a guy who is a wonderful piano player and a great musician in general but he has no grasp on maths. Is he less intelligent than a mathematician? Of course not, and that mathematician probably sucks at other, non -math subjects.

So when the government want people studying science and technology they should understand that sending 500 people out of school into software engineering will probably only produce a hand full of people who ever will become good programmers. Hence, the fatal flaw in the points system.

As for the data about 40% of people dropping out of science in DCU, I'd actually believe it to be larger. When I started in DCU in the not so distance past, there was 120(ish) people on my course; a computer science degree. Of those, only about 50 made it into second year and that, apparently, was high when compared to other years.

maninasia

IMHO, the government should not get too involved in things. The less they interfere the better. That means they don't charge as much tax and we can use our own money to spend as we wish.

Pay for our education so that it is valued and earned. Create a situation where working for yourself is better. Now it is indeed the situation where there is no govt. option for many jobs, but because of the way the casino economy has been operated taxes will increase thereby discouraging investment at the time when people are more willing to open new businesses and go for it themselves.
It's more likely people will emigrate instead...at least at the moment.

Mapsis

Thank God people are highlighting the fact that Ireland is the furthest thing from a Knowledge Economy that there is out there.
Its a front to make people feel like they are more important than they are. If we were a true knowledge economy we wouldnt have new so many people in construction- who are unemployed now and wont even go back to work cause they wont be paid what they feel they are deserved.
(Not a pot shot at people who work in this sector as, like many, I do myself) What other country could a bricky become one of Irelands richest men (gerry gannon )..of course now hes in NAMA!

All one needs to do is take a good look at Ireland. Ireland is a country of chancers. Not calculated risk takers. CHANCERS. Just think about any irish people you know who've moved to any other English speaking country and who's doing well for themselves...probably cause they are a fecking gangster. Ireland should do whats its good at. Pissising people off and still coming out smelling of roses. (I'm thinking of our 12.5% corp rate and our IFSC & Shannon free zones) Ireland should become the gaming centre of Europe for the likes of Paddy Power as gaming markets online are opening up all over the world.....but again, look at the public sector...all the nursing managers that we have..1 for ever 5 workers..and they are doing SFA and creaming the money for it....Ireland is maybe the dumbest country in Europe....all over central europe and Northern Europe people are way smarter and way nicer.

This country is ****ed! I'm, paying Ryanair an extra € 5.00 on baggage to check out of this **** pit!

MysticFred

ntlbell wrote: »

The problem is not just the studenets.

I went back to do a course at night recently and the standard of lecturing was a disgrace.

Can you name the college?

AlekSmart

All one needs to do is take a good look at Ireland. Ireland is a country of chancers. Not calculated risk takers. CHANCERS. Just think about any irish people you know who've moved to any other English speaking country and who's doing well for themselves...probably cause they are a fecking gangster. Ireland should do whats its good at. Pissising people off and still coming out smelling of roses. (I'm thinking of our 12.5% corp rate and our IFSC & Shannon free zones) Ireland should become the gaming centre of Europe for the likes of Paddy Power as gaming markets online are opening up all over the world.....but again, look at the public sector...all the nursing managers that we have..1 for ever 5 workers..and they are doing SFA and creaming the money for it....Ireland is maybe the dumbest country in Europe....all over central europe and Northern Europe people are way smarter and way nicer.

Surely worth a sticky ?

Mapsis has got it in ONE


Ans as for ......What other country could a bricky become one of Irelands richest men (Gerry Gannon ).

True Mapsis....cue the M&S theme music......."Not just any ordinary Bricklayer.....an M&S bricklayer......"

InReality

Yes it was a political myth. We had inward investment because if the tax rate. End of story. But no-one could say that so the KE myth was born...

Ok there may have been some good graduates in the 90's and we spend more on Uni's R&D now.
But the recent noises about grade inflation prove that the KE is complete bollox as a solution.

Welease

It's not a political myth.. it exists and many companies in Ireland are heavily involved in the knowledge economy.. The problem is the knowledge economy in Ireland has the same issues as our other industries... they vast majority of them are foreign companies, and continuing to expand in Ireland doesn't make financial sense due to our high cost.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Eliot Rosewater

“The reintroduction of bonus points will send a clear signal to national and international industry leaders that Ireland is serious about developing a smart economy."

So why are they continually dumbing down the honours Maths course with schemes like "Project Maths"? Is that not sending out the opposite signal?

I think it would be interesting if the CAO system was scrapped. Then the Universities would effectively dictate the Leaving Cert curriculum. Instead of accepting a blanket "you need HC3 Maths" the Universities could say "you need a Maths course that has covered the following topics..." Then the secondary schools would have to provide a course that included those topics. No more dropping the difficult topics to increase the pass rate.

daithicarr

As i mentioned on another thread, we have and will have a huge number of unemployed for the next few years at the very least and we are going to have to pay social welfare payments for them anyway. why not extend back to education in a limited way, allow them to take up third level education courses and continue to recieve their social welfare payments so they can survive while they are retrained.

Granted not all of them can become programers etc, but a significant number could develp more relevant and more up to date skills which we will need if we are to have a knowledge economy.

Others such as gasfitter electricians etc could be reskilled in order to help design and make the sort of products they used to fit, for example gas fires, a lot of the ones i have come across from the continent have almost idiotic flaws, which some one with experiance with them could recognise and improve upon. we could use the experiance in the building industry to make and export products related to it ?

The whole education system could do with a radical overhall, i learned more in one year in a cramming school than i did the previous 5 in normal secondary schools. there should be more continual assesment for both secondary and third level , which would mean your whole academic career wouldnt be decided on a couple of hours and you wouldnt be able to fob off till the end and hope to scrape past.

RichardAnd

daithicarr wrote: »

As i mentioned on another thread, we have and will have a huge number of unemployed for the next few years at the very least and we are going to have to pay social welfare payments for them anyway. why not extend back to education in a limited way, allow them to take up third level education courses and continue to recieve their social welfare payments so they can survive while they are retrained.

Granted not all of them can become programers etc, but a significant number could develp more relevant and more up to date skills which we will need if we are to have a knowledge economy.

Others such as gasfitter electricians etc could be reskilled in order to help design and make the sort of products they used to fit, for example gas fires, a lot of the ones i have come across from the continent have almost idiotic flaws, which some one with experiance with them could recognise and improve upon. we could use the experiance in the building industry to make and export products related to it ?

The whole education system could do with a radical overhall, i learned more in one year in a cramming school than i did the previous 5 in normal secondary schools. there should be more continual assesment for both secondary and third level , which would mean your whole academic career wouldnt be decided on a couple of hours and you wouldnt be able to fob off till the end and hope to scrape past.

That's already happening, some people have been allowed to go to college and stay on the dole. There also is training available through FAS but the problem is that alot of people won't do it. Also, and this is my opinion, FAS with the WPP scheme probably keep people out of real work more than they get them into it.

daithicarr

the FAS courses dont really seem that great they are a good starting point , but a lot of the ones i have seen seem to still be geared towards the building trade

jmayo

One of the problems with Ireland and Irish society, which manifested itself massively during the construction bubble is we have always moved towards construction as a means of making it.

Most of the so called successful emigrants that went to the US and UK in particular became successful through construction.

This mindset was taken home, readily adopted by the ffer politicans in particular and even worse the bankers.

Our nations idea of an entrepreneur has become someone that builds housing estates and shopping centres.
Take out the likes of Micheal O'Leary, Tony Ryan, michael smurfit, Dermot Desmond, denis o'brien, Denis Brosnan and who do we have ?
Even then some of the above have always had a very cushy connected relationship with politicans and some of their deals would be questioned a lot more in other more regulated countries.

sean quinn made his money out of the construction industry (sand, cement and later radiators) and then moved into what is considered the lesser idea of an Irish entrepreneur, being a publican.
His foray into Insurance was somewhat successful until his abismal banking failures ruined that.

Still we have people talking about construction and rehiring the multitudes that work in the area in reconfiguring out houses for energy efficiency.
This is somehting that could be done but can people let go the idea of once again relying on this one industry.

This country needs a huge mindset change before we become a smart anything.

daithicarr

hmm maybe we can knock all the houses we built the last 15 years and just start all over again . 90% of the are **** and will be even worse 40 years down the road

_tony_

Am not too sure about a 'knowledge economy' - what we need is an 'accountable economy', where people of all ages will not have automatic endless 'entitlements'.

The good times made things too easy - and our current education system teaches people that they're entitled to free/cheap education, they're entitled to goto any Univeristy if they get enough CAO points, they're entitled to never turn up to lectures, they're entitled to slow down the lecturers pace as they missed classes...... Most of these people get a smack in the face when they finish college - they are not 'entitled' to get a job. Some who do get jobs go on thinking that they are 'entitled' to have a job for life, at a salary they deem to be fair, or they'll go on strike and hold the country to ransom.

Free/Cheap education is critical, but why shouldn't this be performance based? In University/College if a student got 60% or higher average for a year - give them free education! if someone averages 50% - let them pay a modest fee - maybe 1-2k. If someone just scrapes it by - with a 40% average - let them pay a bit more...3k or something. The people who really want to be there, won't have to pay. The people who are only half bothered can pay to show they want to be there.

Lecturers need to be evaluated based on their students. Currently publications and funding is how these people are evaluated. Students don't matter (thus the quality of lectures and supervision). Promotions are granted based on funding, publications and administrative tasks - surely the students are more important! I recently heard that some of the top US universities are starting to phone students ...if someone applies for a lecturing job the Uni will track down some of their past degree/ PhD students and phone them for comments on the teacher... great idea if you ask me. if an unusual amount of students fail a course, the lecturer should be asked why. if a PhD with tax-based funding takes 5 years and is not finished, the supervisor should have to answer for this.

Until our education system teaches students how to be responsible and accountable we are going to stay in the same place we're at now.