Knowledge Economy.. not a chance!

djk1000

So I'm sitting here trying to watch last nights Aftershock documentary on the RTE iplayer. Richard Curran is talking about the governments plan to create 120,000 knowledge jobs. I've just given up because the miserable excuse for broadband that I'm stuck with can't handle it.

I'm studying at the moment for a degree, this involves watching lectures online. I had to give up on that a few times this week because the broadband sucks so badly.

I have absolutely no confidence in a system that can't provide a basic building block of a knowledge economy such as decent internet connectivity ever succeeding it bringing about real change.

dunsandin

I love the idea of a knowledge economy. It will lead to the production of a generation of useless graduates that cant bang in a nail, and will lessen the competition for real jobs that are actually available. Irish Knowledge economy. That would have had a punchline a few years ago.

Welease

dunsandin wrote: »

I love the idea of a knowledge economy. It will lead to the production of a generation of useless graduates that cant bang in a nail, and will lessen the competition for real jobs that are actually available. Irish Knowledge economy. That would have had a punchline a few years ago.

Well its depends on the particular usage of the wide interpretation of the "knowledge economy"..

In it's rawest terms.. its using knowledge to add extra value...

If we don't intend in engaging with an knowledge economy is there any points in us currently trying to push more people towards science and maths..
I know Intel consider themselves part of the knowledge economy (silicon sand into processors)... and i know we all want companies like that here

jimmycrackcorm

If broadband was the answer to the knowledge economy then south Korea would be the it capital of the planet.

RichardAnd

This has come up before and the general consensus is that it's laughable. Pat Kenny was on about it on Monday and someone mentioned Dublin being the capital of science someday! Insane!

But Ireland's knowledge economy has been predicted by other sources and it would look something like this;


http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80779675/


These guys have gotten it quite right. It's a joke.

Sponge Bob

There is a bit of a knowledge economy but Noel Dempsey ( he who presided for many years over our Broadband Fiasco) has been convinced that it is a predictive alogorithm running on a high speed server over ultra low latency fibre links that will tell him how to get to the stash of gold in Meath before the leprecahun gets him.

Dempsey knows this is the only way to bate that leprechaun and that .....in a nutshell....is what he understands the knowledge economy actually means.

He tells the rest of them about it at cabinet meetings.

ghost_ie

Could someone define what is meant by the "knowledge economy"? What knowledge is required? A knowledge of economics, computers, medicine, engineering, hairdressing.......what?

Nijmegen

A high tech set of businesses exporting to the rest of the world.

The Frontline had a follow up to Aftershock. A business owner made a great point: You want get a knowledge economy until you teach our kids to be entrepreneurs.

We have young scientist fairs, young innovation awards, etc etc, proving that we have intelligent and creative kids.

Yet, they all go and get their points, take their degree and get a salaried job somewhere safe. That's the culture we have.

Meanwhile, we rely on foreign direct investment from companies like PayPal, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, etc etc etc. Companies founded by young people who took their ideas, took a risk and created huge global companies... And they're the frontmen for a much larger 'industry' of start ups that have been, to one degree or another, successful.

Such Irish successes are few and far between.

We rely on relatively low costs and tax breaks, and a relatively well educated workforce to attract jobs, rather than creating them. Innovation and risk taking is what drives economies. It is what has made the US the worlds foremost power, and the country from which the vast majority of innovative, game changing companies come from.

ei.sdraob

Nijmegen wrote: »

A business owner made a great point: You want get a knowledge economy until you teach our kids to be entrepreneurs.

We have young scientist fairs, young innovation awards, etc etc, proving that we have intelligent and creative kids.

Yet, they all go and get their points, take their degree and get a salaried job somewhere safe. That's the culture we have..

Spot on,
yeh she had a really good point, pitty it went over the heads of most of the people in there

Everytime I hear the hot air about "smart economy" or "knowledge economy" another braincell inside of me screams out in agony and dies

As I said in another thread before the concept of starting own business is alien to graduates (ive experienced it at both under and post graduate levels)
They expect to be handed a job when graduating, hell I even wasted time arguing with one "sample" that you are not guaranteed a job, a car, a house when you graduate.... it was like banging head against wall... i hope this student has now years later realized the reality with this recession


And to be honest (as a business owner and employer)
why should people bother going thru' the whole hassle of starting an enterprise and employing others?
All you get is taxes and red tape, and soon we will get more taxes to pay for more fools with their "NAMA"s
I honestly would not wish it on anyone, chances of success in the face of all the **** thrown at you...


everyone remember that guy who won young scientist, but EI (thats Enterprise Ireland ) told him to get lost when he approached them? he went to the States and made a nice business and bit of money for himself
what sort of a message does that send out?

grumble grumble

dan_d

It's the flavour of the week. The in buzzword. Never mind that our young people - when I say young I mean up to their mid 30's, with or without their sense of entitlement! - are leaving in droves with their science degrees and engineering and computer degrees. We are GOING to have a knowledge economy. Never mind that Mary Coughlan wants our colleges to lower standards and admit those with or without maths to make her statistics look good.The politicians will have a smart economy if it kills them. Doesn't matter that their idea of a smart economy involves attracting businesses like Dell back to set up a processing plant, as opposed to setting up an Irish business producing Irish products to sell to an international market. It's still a knowledge economy, coz there's computers involved.Right?
Or a green smart economy. Or a smart knowledge economy.Or whatever permutation of those words you choose to employ.
To be honest I think our biggest attributes right now are the fact that we have a young workforce, tax breaks, we are in Europe and we speak english. None of which have anything to do with the level of our education or anything we've actually built for ourselves. Feels like I'm back in JC Geography/History, being told why US companies are interested in Ireland, and why we can build ourselves up.It's like the last 10 years never happened!!

Japer

ei.sdraob wrote: »

And to be honest (as a business owner and employer)
why should people bother going thru' the whole hassle of starting an enterprise and employing others?
All you get is taxes and red tape, and soon we will get more taxes to pay for more fools with their "NAMA"s
I honestly would not wish it on anyone, chances of success in the face of all the **** thrown at you...

+1

At a 30 year class re-union recently, , it was the "average to slow" fellow, who did not bust his **** to do well in his leaving, but instead joined the Gardai, who came out best financially, having had an easy enough life this past 30 years, plenty of holidays and sick pay, no great stress, and now he is retired with a pension pot worth over a million. The hard working risk-takers, who worked harder at school, who foolishly re-invested their life savings in to their businesses and property, who worked harder at college and who work 60 to 80 hour weeks have not done as well, and its their taxes who are supporting the better paid public sector. What a crazy country.

hobochris

dunsandin wrote: »

I love the idea of a knowledge economy. It will lead to the production of a generation of useless graduates that cant bang in a nail, and will lessen the competition for real jobs that are actually available. Irish Knowledge economy. That would have had a punchline a few years ago.

Funny that.

I am currently part of what would be considered the knowledge economy(IT). My company like many other IT companies aren't fairing to badly and are weathering the recession fairly well so far, while People who were in my class in school who decided to pursue apprenticeships rather then college(i.e. the 'real jobs', banging nails as you put it) are now wasting away on the live register with very little prospects for employment.

The_Honeybadger

Japer wrote: »

+1

At a 30 year class re-union recently, , it was the "average to slow" fellow, who did not bust his **** to do well in his leaving, but instead joined the Gardai, who came out best financially, having had an easy enough life this past 30 years, plenty of holidays and sick pay, no great stress, and now he is retired with a pension pot worth over a million. The hard working risk-takers, who worked harder at school, who foolishly re-invested their life savings in to their businesses and property, who worked harder at college and who work 60 to 80 hour weeks have not done as well, and its their taxes who are supporting the better paid public sector. What a crazy country.

I have made this point many times on these forums, we simply cannot have a knowledge economy when all our best and brightest are encouraged by mommy and daddy to get a good safe PS job. We need to even things out by removing the outrageous perks and benefits that can be got by those in the PS. It will be politically difficult and the unions will fight the government every inch of the way but that is what it will take.

ei.sdraob

hobochris wrote: »

Funny that.

I am currently part of what would be considered the knowledge economy(IT). My company like many other IT companies aren't fairing to badly and are weathering the recession fairly well so far, while People who were in my class in school who decided to pursue apprenticeships rather then college(i.e. the 'real jobs', banging nails as you put it) are now wasting away on the live register with very little prospects for employment.

Thats a good point there @hobochris

in early 00s

many people passed up their chance at free education and went into trades (or just plain old labouring) and were able to earn alot more than engineers and scientists (just shows how topsy curvy the whole bubble was)

now most of these people are out of job with construction being hit the hardest

I remember these people "sneering" down at those fools who went into engineering and science...

SkepticOne

ghost_ie wrote: »

Could someone define what is meant by the "knowledge economy"? What knowledge is required? A knowledge of economics, computers, medicine, engineering, hairdressing.......what?

When politicians use the term they use it to mean something vague that they can point to in the future as traditional jobs disappear. It has no real meaning and that is the great advantage of it. There's no way of knowing what needs to be done to achieve it and there's no means of measuring the extent to which it is achieved, so the politician can't be held to anything.

However, when non-politicians use it, I think they mean an economy based on high-value exports of goods and services. There's nothing new in this. It has been the strategy (with some success) since the early nineties. Possibly now it means encouraging home-grown industry rather than inward investment.

PeakOutput

djk1000 wrote: »

So I'm sitting here trying to watch last nights Aftershock documentary on the RTE iplayer. Richard Curran is talking about the governments plan to create 120,000 knowledge jobs. I've just given up because the miserable excuse for broadband that I'm stuck with can't handle it.

I'm studying at the moment for a degree, this involves watching lectures online. I had to give up on that a few times this week because the broadband sucks so badly.

I have absolutely no confidence in a system that can't provide a basic building block of a knowledge economy such as decent internet connectivity ever succeeding it bringing about real change.

here in limerick my 20euro a month internet connection is great

i can download pretty much anything i want in 10mins max so either get off the **** package or stop moaning

RichardAnd

The problem with this country and an economy based on science and engineering is that, as someone pointed out above, we don't do well with initiative. We seem to think that sending people to college will produce scientists who can then turn Ireland into some sort of technology hub but the abilities of making money really can't be taught. Someone can get a phd masters in business or whatever but that in no way means they will be able to run a business.

Nijmegen

We need an economy that fosters risk takers going out and setting up their own businesses.

As it is, we sit, cap in hand, relying on foreigners who do that themselves.

Facebook, LinkedIn and Zynga, three of the latest examples coming to Ireland.

Is there something in the water in California?

I think not.

cson

I'll make two points on the 'Knowledge Economy'

1. Third Level Education: You can turn out thousands of graduates yet it doesn't make for a 'smart' workforce. Witness Intel and the rest complaining about the standards. This is partly due to the exam process where understanding of the course and subject matter are relegated to a distant second in favour of knowing what you need to know to pass the exams. Secondly; whilst in theory free 3rd level education would appear a good thing; it's contributed to flooding the market with sub standard graduates and has resulted in people going to College for the sake of it, wasting both the State and their parents money. Depending on which reports you go by; we have either 1 University in the top 200 in the world, or else none. If you want to gear towards a knowledge based economy then you must have the top Univeristys providing it. Now I know we'll never compete with the Harvard, Yale, UCLA or MITs of this world in terms of funding but we can do a damn sight better than we're doing. The solution is twofold; reintroduce fees and start making the connection between the University and its Almuni greater - this is huge in the US.

2. Entreprenuership: You need people to employ these smart grads. That requires risk takers. They take the risks, the grads provide the innovation. We need to make barriers to entry as small as possible for start up businesses. There is absolutely no reason why Ireland can't have an indigenous Amazon/Ebay/Paypal operation going here. We have some huge companies already [CRH, Kerry Group, Glen Dimplex - largest supplier of heaters in the world as far as I'm aware] and the move should be taken provide support to those entrepreneurs with ideas that can be exported, bringing more money into the country. And it doesn't even have to be at the forefront of Maths and Science. Freshways Sandwiches [Owned by Kerry incidentally] are one off the top of head as an idea that could quite easily be replicated around the world. I don't remember enountering many prepacked sandwiches in the US the last time I was there.

hobochris

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Thats a good point there @hobochris

in early 00s

many people passed up their chance at free education and went into trades (or just plain old labouring) and were able to earn alot more than engineers and scientists (just shows how topsy curvy the whole bubble was)

now most of these people are out of job with construction being hit the hardest

I remember these people "sneering" down at those fools who went into engineering and science...

I never got this, as in IT especially there is a skill shortage for experienced skilled people, anyone who looked into it could see the possibilities are endless in the IT sector.Where as apprenticeships your potential is capped.

but who wants to 'be a nerd and work with stupid computers' :rolleyes:

cson wrote: »

2. Entreprenuership: You need people to employ these smart grads. That requires risk takers. They take the risks, the grads provide the innovation. We need to make barriers to entry as small as possible for start up businesses. There is absolutely no reason why Ireland can't have an indigenous Amazon/Ebay/Paypal operation going here. We have some huge companies already [CRH, Kerry Group, Glen Dimplex - largest supplier of heaters in the world as far as I'm aware] and the move should be taken provide support to those entrepreneurs with ideas that can be exported, bringing more money into the country. And it doesn't even have to be at the forefront of Maths and Science. Freshways Sandwiches [Owned by Kerry incidentally] are one off the top of head as an idea that could quite easily be replicated around the world. I don't remember enountering many prepacked sandwiches in the US the last time I was there.

This is most definitely where we are found wanting.

The Business and accounting I covered as part of my course in college would be just enough for me to understand what is required in systems that businesses want and need, There should be modules on innovation and entrepreneurship, not just teaching in black and white how its done but actively encourage graduates to go out and do it.

ei.sdraob

hobochris wrote: »

but who wants to 'be a nerd and work with stupid computers' :rolleyes:

I did

cson

SkepticOne wrote: »

Possibly now it means encouraging home-grown industry rather than inward investment.

Absolutely; if you look at the size and standard of the FDIs in Ireland, obviously we have something that attracts them - be it the tax regime or the relatively skilled workforce. Though I usupect it leans highly toward the latter. Of course you can factor in the EU, decent Infrastrucutre in Dublin anyway, English speaking and a number of other things.

To be honest; there's no reason why we can't have an Irish Company attain the same size of the FDI's we have here already should we provide adequate foundations to allow it to happen.

MaceFace

The Knowledge Economy is a political banner to hide behind that can not be measured.
I would strongly argue that there is a very strong Knowledge Economy in Ireland today, as there is a much lower proportion of people from this sector who are unemployed.
Everyone I know from the IT sector is working, and those that lost their jobs through redundancy got a new job very quick (<3 months).

BTW: To be part of the knowledge economy, you just have to rely almost exclusively on your brain to do your job. Your physical prowess does you no good.
The people who work on the production lines in Intel are not just part of Hi Tech Manufacturing which is no different than someone making milk bottle tops.

The problem within IT at the moment is that there are not enough quality graduates. Both foreign and domestic companies are struggling to find qualified people in Ireland and Havok recently said that they have 40 vacancies but can not find the people and they have to resort to looking abroad for candidates.

RichardAnd

cson wrote: »

I'll make two points on the 'Knowledge Economy'

1. Third Level Education: You can turn out thousands of graduates yet it doesn't make for a 'smart' workforce. Witness Intel and the rest complaining about the standards. This is partly due to the exam process where understanding of the course and subject matter are relegated to a distant second in favour of knowing what you need to know to pass the exams. Secondly; whilst in theory free 3rd level education would appear a good thing; it's contributed to flooding the market with sub standard graduates and has resulted in people going to College for the sake of it, wasting both the State and their parents money. Depending on which reports you go by; we have either 1 University in the top 200 in the world, or else none. If you want to gear towards a knowledge based economy then you must have the top Univeristys providing it. Now I know we'll never compete with the Harvard, Yale, UCLA or MITs of this world in terms of funding but we can do a damn sight better than we're doing. The solution is twofold; reintroduce fees and start making the connection between the University and its Almuni greater - this is huge in the US.

Agreed. Exams in this country are all about memorising and not understanding. People who get high points in the leaving cert more often than not do it by memorising off math formulas that don't understand. They learn off sheets of poems and books without ever attempting to appreciate what they authors are trying to say and in science, they memorise off the first x elements on the periodic table.

I think the problem is the CAO system. When fees come back, this could be dismantled and then the universities could actually dictate what they want in potential students. What we need coming out of college are people who are educated and not cocky graduates who probably don't know how to open a tin of beans.

hobochris

RichardAnd wrote: »

Agreed. Exams in this country are all about memorising and not understanding. People who get high points in the leaving cert more often than not do it by memorising off math formulas that don't understand. They learn off sheets of poems and books without ever attempting to appreciate what they authors are trying to say and in science, they memorise off the first x elements on the periodic table.

I think the problem is the CAO system. When fees come back, this could be dismantled and then the universities could actually dictate what they want in potential students. What we need coming out of college are people who are educated and not cocky graduates who probably don't know how to open a tin of beans.

Continuous assessment would fix this problem If adopted by all third level institutions, I know It worked when I was doing my degree.

Its a test of knowledge in practice not what you can cram three days before.

Auvers

PeakOutput wrote: »

either get off the **** package or stop moaning

sitting in mammys living room in Castletroy while typing that?

Just to inform you a lot of people can only get dial-up or like me my telephone line barely supports 2meg and thats with random disconnects, I live just 10km from Dublin city centre, yeah Irelands broadband infrastructure really is on the bleeding edge

cson

Yup, huge problem in Irish 3rd Level institutes is knowing instead of understanding. There is an acute difference.

SkepticOne

I posted points rankings for courses for various universities a while back. It is depressing that the same courses score top points that they did decades ago and those courses associated with the "knowledge economy" tend to be towards the bottom.

If companies complain that they can't get enough decent (for example) computer graduates, the normal - but incorrect, imo - course of action is to increase the number of places available at third level for computer science. The points system is a market and as such governed by supply and demand. If you increase the supply you lower the points and those with high points will steer clear.

Thus you perpetuate the scenario with clever people only going law, medicine, actuarial studies and so on. Nothing wrong with these jobs but if we want to get the country out of the trouble it is in, increasing the quality of people who do these jobs will not achieve it.

RichardAnd

SkepticOne wrote: »

I posted points rankings for courses for various universities a while back. It is depressing that the same courses score top points that they did decades ago and those courses associated with the "knowledge economy" tend to be towards the bottom.

If companies complain that they can't get enough decent (for example) computer graduates, the normal - but incorrect, imo - course of action is to increase the number of places available at third level for computer science. The points system is a market and as such governed by supply and demand. If you increase the supply you lower the points and those with high points will steer clear.

Thus you perpetuate the scenario with clever people only going law, medicine, actuarial studies and so on. Nothing wrong with these jobs but if we want to get the country out of the trouble it is in, increasing the quality of people who do these jobs will not achieve it.

This is true. When I started in software engineering the amount of wasters and idiots in the course was unreal. However, these dropped out in their droves because they held the mistaken belief that a course the requires only 300 points is easy when it is, in fact, the most difficult IT course in Ireland (Computer Applications in DCU is anyone is wondering).

PeakOutput

Auvers wrote: »

sitting in mammys living room in Castletroy while typing that?

no are you? or do you just like trying to be condescending?

havnt lived at home for 4 years 'kid'

Just to inform you a lot of people can only get dial-up or like me my telephone line barely supports 2meg and thats with random disconnects, I live just 10km from Dublin city centre, yeah Irelands broadband infrastructure really is on the bleeding edge

no its **** but most people can still get decent broadband

as for the knowledge economy, there is definitely alot of relatively well educated people out there

and

we have more than enough tradespeople out there

so as has been pointed out we are missing the entrepeneurs

i guess once you have all 3 of these things you can stop talking about a knowledge economy becuase you simply have a good economy.

i dont see the incentives increasing as far as entrepeneurship goes because the masses would cry out that they are being treated unfairly with cuts and job losses while business people are getting more benefits. people arent smart enough to see the benefits unfortunately

PeakOutput

SkepticOne wrote: »

The points system is a market and as such governed by supply and demand. If you increase the supply you lower the points and those with high points will steer clear.

thats not the entire story though

our standard of maths is so poor and a computer science(for example) degree so hard that people will go to other degrees simply because they are not interested enough and not able for a computer science degree

now i feel the dropout rates are inflated because people see low points and assume the course is easy BUT i would argue that a high quality computer science degree is as difficult if not more so and as valuable as an engineering / law degree