Top academics snub Quinn pay cut deal

pog it

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/latest-news/top-academics-snub-quinn-pay-cut-plea-2991835.html

This is a story that warmed my heart this morning. Top marks to them. It takes some intelligent people to stand up to the government. This government is breaking the upper salary limit in several cases for their own special advisors who aren't nearly as valuable to the taxpayer as good lecturers and educators.

Cookie_Monster

would you take a voluntary pay cut just for the sake of it just to appease the populist nonsense?

Hell no, if the gov demand it or change the law fine but certainly not by merre request

sellerbarry

I agree with Ruairi Quinn. And these people should be Told and not asked to take a pay cut.

n97 mini

Jeez, that's very cocky considering our education standards are slipping on all fronts.

Head The Wall

I

pog it wrote: »

who aren't nearly as valuable to the taxpayer as good lecturers and educators.

Who says they are good? I think our college rankings state otherwise.

graduate

The headline on this is misleading. These people are almost certainly managers, not people who teach or research, although they may have started off as academics. They are probably not very good managers.

Also there are a large number of medics receiving such salaries. Why exactly should a leading computer scientist or biochemist (say) not potentially be as valuable as a medical expert?

I think our college rankings state otherwise.

Quite the contrary, Ireland has excellent rankings, all things considered.

RichardAnd

graduate wrote: »

Quite the contrary, Ireland has excellent rankings, all things considered.

I agree. For a small country, we don't do too badly at all though some seem to have a penchant for putting their fellows down. That being said, there is always room for improvement.

Peanut2011

graduate wrote: »

Quite the contrary, Ireland has excellent rankings, all things considered.

And it is the last part of this that shows you don't believe that. "All things considered"??

This is what I mean, we always find the way or a reason to justify getting bent over. Most of these "Top Academics" are just bunch of overrated people who managed to get them selves to hight paying jobs.

Isn't that the way most business is done here, since the Bertie era? Ah sure it'll be grand! And it's not what you know it's who you know.

Country can't support that any more so things need to be cut down to proportion. I'm not saying that these are the people to blame for the problems country is facing, however irrespective of that the country pays them and we can no longer afford.

Look at that as any other business, you would not increase your product price, that is not selling the best, just to maintain high wages.

ardmacha

Most of these "Top Academics" are just bunch of overrated people who managed to get them selves to hight paying jobs.

There is probably some truth in that given the nature of governance in this jurisdiction.

However, as to overall point about universities they were identified by an EU study as among the most efficient in Europe and there is not many publicly funded sectors in Ireland that can say that. As for rankings, someone calculated that on a population adjusted based that the Republic had more universities in the top 500 than pretty much any other place.

That said, €200,000 is a pretty decent salary and people should be able to manage on it in the times that are in it.

Atilathehun

Rurai Quinn, is "asking" these geezers to take a pay cut:o

The time for talking is over, and the time for asking is over.

Govern like you were elected to do Mr Quinn. Tell these folks, that their pay is cut. End of story!!

If you want a precedent, just look at what Baldy Noonan, told private sector pension fund holders. He didn't ask ................. he jus told us, he was going to steal some of our money!!! And he did! And he is going to do it again each year for the next three years. And there is fcuk all we can do about it.

So why not the same deal for these "intellectuals" ........ and for a whole lot more people in the PS?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

woodoo

It doesn't make sense to me. They are paid €200,000 and are educating our future youth. The bankers apparently need much much more to do their job. The going rate is €500,000 or even higher. Why pay so much? Is it to ensure we don't get incompetent or stupid people that will make a mess of things??? THEY HAVE MADE A MESS OF THINGS ALREADY :eek:

The whole system needs changing.

n97 mini

ardmacha wrote: »

As for rankings, someone calculated that on a population adjusted based that the Republic had more universities in the top 500 than pretty much any other place.

Top 500? We're not aiming that high are we. I'd wager we have so many on that list simply because we have so many 3rd level institutions.

I have a friend who is a senior lecturer. He believes he's brilliant, but his experience is 10 years out of date. If he were to get a job in a private company he would be paid no more than a graduate salary.

byhookorbycrook

Would be interesting to know what mouth almighty ex-academic Ed Walshe is getting, seeing as he thinks all people in education are way overpaid.(Bar himself,naturally)

sarumite

n97 mini wrote: »

I have a friend who is a senior lecturer. He believes he's brilliant, but his experience is 10 years out of date. If he were to get a job in a private company he would be paid no more than a graduate salary.

To be fair, your friend probably never gets to do anything practical. Now he is manager, spending his days coordinating and organising within the department , writing grant applications and budgets etc and writing/editing articles for publications. His professinal experitise is out of date, however his experience is probably still very relevant just very different to what he started out doing.

leeroybrown

graduate wrote: »

Quite the contrary, Ireland has excellent rankings, all things considered.

For the moment. If the level of academic funding, number of post-doctoral positions and general research expenditure continue to reduce as it is those rankings will start sliding quite fast. They generally have a "memory" built into them so it takes a number of years of decline for a University to drop significantly.

graduate wrote: »

Also there are a large number of medics receiving such salaries. Why exactly should a leading computer scientist or biochemist (say) not potentially be as valuable as a medical expert?

It's a sectoral thing. The academic medical consultants have separate higher salary scales as they're effectively giving up a hospital medical consultant's salary to be an academic. Even a University professor on the maximum pay grade earns significantly less than a hospital medical consultant.

ardmacha

Top 500? We're not aiming that high are we. I'd wager we have so many on that list simply because we have so many 3rd level institutions.

We don't have a disproportionate number of universities, the UK has 128 universities. And as for the 500 the world is a big place. Irish universities have insufficient funding to be in the very front of things, but they get a decent team performance in the peleton.

To be fair, your friend probably never gets to do anything practical. Now he is manager, spending his days coordinating and organising within the department , writing grant applications and budgets etc and writing/editing articles for publications. His professinal experitise is out of date, however his experience is probably still very relevant just very different to what he started out doing.

Exactly. This is a bit like saying that if you two people left Portlaoise that the one who took the M8 is not as near Limerick as the one who took the M7. You could equally say that the guy who took the M7 is not as near Cork.

n97 mini

sarumite wrote: »

To be fair, your friend probably never gets to do anything practical. Now he is manager, spending his days coordinating and organising within the department , writing grant applications and budgets etc and writing/editing articles for publications. His professinal experitise is out of date, however his experience is probably still very relevant just very different to what he started out doing.

No, he spends most of his time lecturing, or correcting assessments. He essentially teaches students very basic knowledge, and once they graduate their first year in the real world is spent on a steep learning curve, upskilling in their first job.

Ironically a well known company sponsored a course in that institution and a year later announced that no Irish graduates were of sufficient quality, and that they would have to recruit abroad.

This attitude to eduction from within the eduction sector is not new, or unique, but there is a large amount of delusion going on. In essence people are believing their own hype.

later12

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I'm not sure slashing academic or University management's pay is the best way of rectifying that.

A drop in (nevertheless possibly positively-biased) university rankings for a University system which aims to be the bedrock of a credible R&D industry is not best remedied by (i) cutting research funding in the way that has been done and (ii) shunting young academics out and sending them abroad.

femur61

RichardAnd wrote: »

I agree. For a small country, we don't do too badly at all though some seem to have a penchant for putting their fellows down. That being said, there is always room for improvement.

Trinity is 200 on the list.
http://www.webometrics.info/top12000.asp?offset=0

We were below 100 last year so its the same as with the bankers , light touch regulation, we believe what they say, law on to themselves.

ardmacha

We were below 100 last year so its the same as with the bankers

If the banks had performed as well as universities then we wouldn't need this forum and TCD would still be in the top 100.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

leeroybrown

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

And it's important to discuss it in that context. The salaries of the very highly paid University staff (Professor and above) is set by the same Higher Remuneration Body as that of the Taoiseach and senior civil servants and as such falls outside the normal Croke Park process.

later12

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Well the drop in ranking is not happening in a vacuum and salaries (of which these are the exception) are not the only variable affecting rankings.

Nor are these salaries anything like the norm in Irish academia. There are eight non-medical consultants earning salaries over €200,000 in question.

As an aside, I love the constant reference to the Taoiseach's salary. I really don't think Mr Kenny's salary is, nor ought it be, seen globally as a benchmark that one shouldn't dare transgress.

Fedup Taxpayer

Peanut2011 wrote: »

And it is the last part of this that shows you don't believe that. "All things considered"??

This is what I mean, we always find the way or a reason to justify getting bent over. Most of these "Top Academics" are just bunch of overrated people who managed to get them selves to hight paying jobs.

Isn't that the way most business is done here, since the Bertie era? Ah sure it'll be grand! And it's not what you know it's who you know.

Country can't support that any more so things need to be cut down to proportion. I'm not saying that these are the people to blame for the problems country is facing, however irrespective of that the country pays them and we can no longer afford.

Look at that as any other business, you would not increase your product price, that is not selling the best, just to maintain high wages.

You can reach the top in the Civil Services in Ireland by being absolutely useless .No one has the balls to sack you so how do each department get rid of you simple promote you of course if you want a prime example look at how Enda plank Kenny managed to engineer the departure of Kevin Carduff to one of the top jobs in Europe the Bertie gob****e culture still rules

Bannasidhe

later10 wrote: »

Nor are these salaries anything like the norm in Irish academia. There are eight non-medical consultants earning salaries over €200,000 in question.

.

Those salaries are symptomatic of an attitude with in Irish universities - I know - I 'used' to lecture in one - 'used' to because I am one of many lecturing staff who were unable to get tenure due to the hiring embargo but were employed on contract - average salary 35-45 P.A.

In the university I taught in, all non-tenured teaching contracts were cut. A few hours are sometimes made available, but that is declining. Most of those hours consist of 'substitute' teaching for professors (usually) or senior lecturers (sometimes) who are unavailable - attending conferences, endless admin meetings etc.

Yet, there are so-called academics, who in reality are administrators who haven't lectured in their subjects for at least a decade, who earn these ridiculous salaries.

One also sees more Celtic Tiger expenditures such as

Monday, January 09, 2012
EDUCATION Minister Ruairi Quinn has been urged to take action if universities are found to be wasting public money after it emerged they spent more than €750,000 on taxis in the last two years.

Almost €263,000 — or 35% — of the €753,446 in taxi charges paid by the seven colleges in 2010 and 2011 was racked up at University College Cork (UCC). The university also paid over €533,000 in expenses associated with visiting lecturers in 2009 and 2010, but the number of people involved is not revealed.

Just over €17,000 was paid by NUI Galway (NUIG) for around 300 visiting lecturers in the same two years, while Dublin City University (DCU) paid €50,000 for 97 visiting lecturers in 2009 and 73 in 2010. The only other university to provide visiting lecturer costs was University of Limerick, which said it paid an hourly rate only for 1,029 people across both years.

After UCC, the highest taxi bill for 2010 and 2011 was incurred by NUI Maynooth in Co Kildare (€128,038), followed by DCU’s €95,000. NUIG paid less than €50,000.

Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/colleges-spend-750k-on-taxis-in-two-years-179411.html#ixzz1jvUwm5k4

750,000 on taxis???? While cutting teaching contracts - shows the priorities.

UCC also has a 1:1 teaching staff/admin staff ratio. What on Earth are all these admin staff doing?

There are tenured teaching staff who are highly committed professionals, who put in all the hours they can, and are truly trying to maintain standards - but increasingly they are becoming frustrated and disillusioned as student numbers rise, resources decrease while those charged with running the university continue to enjoy obscene salaries and wave to the plebs from the back of the taxi whisking them off to an important lunch meeting.

There are also tenured teaching staff who haven't revised their notes in decades, do everything they can to avoid lecturing/correcting and spend their days in meeting about meetings about sub-committees.