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Third level: Is it a privellege or a right?

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Comments

  • #92
    looking_around
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,491 ✭✭✭looking_around


    I think they need to be stricter with minimum grades, and remove useless courses. I.E, the country should only pay for you, if you've achieved 400 points and above. Basically prove you'll work. If you haven't, pay for it yourself.

    But I think the whole education system could with improvements anyway S:


  • #93
    Czarcasm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,076 ✭✭✭✭Czarcasm


    ScumLord wrote: »
    I don't really see it that way, I don't think parents can be trusted and they're going to come into the education process with their own bias and ignorance.

    We're a community, and the community as a whole decides how the community should act. We like to think of ourselves as a collective of individuals where each one can dictate their own agenda and every agenda is valid. We're a community though, the needs of the community always outweigh the needs of the individual. I think the community has an obligation to the individuals in that community to ensure they get the best possible information from proper sources and that it's not left to some random person that may not have the right tools or experience to give the proper type of education.


    We're somewhere abouts on the same page, I posted these recently in the gay adoption thread that's now locked so I can't quote directly from it on mobile-

    A child isn't just raised by their parents, they are raised by a community. To me that means that while a child's parents are always supposed to be their primary influence, secondary influences such as relatives, friends and neighbours also have an influence in forming a child's view of the world around them.

    The way I figure it, the ideal scenario for a child is that they are surrounded by positive role models, be they male, female, heterosexual, homosexual, transgendered, transexual, again the list goes on, essentially what they all have in common is that they are human beings, but the beauty of this, is that they are all different as individuals in their own right.

    They all bring something different and share their diverse life experiences and education with my child, things I will never be able to teach him in ten lifetimes, but ten people will be able to teach him about their life experiences, and increase his knowledge and understanding of the world around him.

    Knowledge that will foster his understanding and respect for diversity, to treat people as individuals to avoid the pitfalls of prejudice, bigotry, racism (again the list goes on), and labelling individuals into categories and groups, because no two individuals are exactly the same as each other.

    Therefore in my opinion at least, we could get hung up on the fact that their parents' sexuality has an influence on the child, or we could accept that it is only ONE relevant influence on a child, given that they are also exposed to other relatives, friends and neighbours on an almost daily basis. What I'm saying is that while their parents' influence has a major bearing on the child's world view, unless the parents (or single parent, male or female!) keep the child in a bubble, there is no guarantee that the child will share the same values and ideals as their parents as they grow and develop themselves as individuals.


    Or as we say as gaeilge-

    "Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh siad".

    I truly believe if you give children something in life to aspire to and encourage them in their chosen direction, they'll flourish because they'll have both the motivation and passion fostered in them from an early age, instead of just being allowed to wander aimlessly through life with no motivation, no direction, no aspirations and no goals.


  • #94
    ted1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,257 ✭✭✭✭ted1


    looking_around wrote: »
    I think they need to be stricter with minimum grades, and remove useless courses. I.E, the country should only pay for you, if you've achieved 400 points and above. Basically prove you'll work. If you haven't, pay for it yourself.

    But I think the whole education system could with improvements anyway S:
    Disagree , people can get A1s in subjects of no relevance. Yet they will fail maths and science subjects.


  • #95
    Czarcasm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,076 ✭✭✭✭Czarcasm


    St.Spodo wrote: »
    The worst-case scenario would be intelligent and capable people being priced out of college. That fosters elitism and perpetuates inequality.


    If they're intelligent and capable, they'll have figured out how to fund their third level education and have prepared for it before they get there ;)


  • #96
    Corkfeen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,940 ✭✭✭Corkfeen


    looking_around wrote: »
    I think they need to be stricter with minimum grades, and remove useless courses. I.E, the country should only pay for you, if you've achieved 400 points and above. Basically prove you'll work. If you haven't, pay for it yourself.

    But I think the whole education system could with improvements anyway S:
    I'll be perfectly honest, I didn't hit 400 points(390) due to a variety of factors. However academically the Leaving Cert was not a sign of my intelligence or ability. I spent an above average time studying but the leaving cert environment did not suit me, I couldn't deal with the pressure of it and don't have the ability to memorise information to regurgitate in an exam situation.

    However I'm averaging a 2.1 and possibly could have a 1.1 for my final year result. It's in English and History and you'd probably classify it as a useless degree. I think I have benefited from the course and have improved my overall critical faculties. Next year, I'll be moving to computer science and shall be paying for that myself. I know many people who had no trouble with getting high points in their Leaving Cert but struggle in University assignments.

    If a person gets 400 points, there's no guarantee that they're more intelligent or more committed to their education than the person who gets less than that. The leaving cert does not reflect how committed a person was to studying for it.


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  • #97
    token101
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,050 ✭✭✭token101


    ted1 wrote: »
    There is quite a logical reason against it, it encourages people to leave. All the graduates who have left would not be paying back and hence its penalises those that stay.

    No it doesn't. The UK doesn't have a mass exodus of graduates because they are taxed too highly and even if you do leave the UK, you still have to pay. So no, that doesn't work.


  • #98
    endacl
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,445 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    I'd say 3rd level education is a privilege, that is earned through application of effort. Cost shouldn't be an issue.


  • #99
    Frank Black
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,296 ✭✭✭Frank Black


    IK09 wrote: »
    College in this country is an excuse. All it does for these "rich kids" is give them a few years of boozing, where they dont have to work. I should know, i went to college because i was told id regret not "havin a laugh", wanted to become a carpenter, went to Mary I and did teaching. It wasnt a mad laugh, it was shíte. I learned fúck all and came out with a degree i dont use or want. I have friends who are still in college (repeatin 3rd year, after repeating 2nd year) who just dont want to work and probably never will after doing arts (soc and pol, and philosophy). Well done you are officially qualified to ask someone "why u want fries with that?" rather than just "do you want fries with that"

    I suspect your negative experience of 3rd level education is mostly down to yourself. Given your reason for attending college was because you were told that you'd regret not "havin a laugh", it's hardly surprising you had a less than beneficial experience.

    I wouldn't imagine you and your friends are particularly typical in terms of your attitude and reasons for attending college and I don't think it's advisable to form views on the usefulness of 3rd level qualifications based on your own experience.


  • #100
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 3,505 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Right
    miss no stars wrote: »
    Saw a lab group recently. Mostly Irish, with 1 American kid. That American kid was sssooooooooooo engaged in the lab cos it's so much harder to get in to college and costs so much more to be in college in America and so they treat it as the privilege it is and put the work in. Irish kids? Ah be grand, I'll copy the report off someone else.
    I don't think that has anything to do with it being difficult to get into college. Irish students are widely known to avoid participation/enthusiasm. It's far more likely to stem from our primary and secondary styles of teaching. As far as I know, schools in other countries involve a lot more interaction.


  • #101
    miss no stars
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,957 ✭✭✭miss no stars


    Right
    true-or-false wrote: »
    I don't think that has anything to do with it being difficult to get into college. Irish students are widely known to avoid participation/enthusiasm. It's far more likely to stem from our primary and secondary styles of teaching. As far as I know, schools in other countries involve a lot more interaction.

    I'm sure there's an element of that. But if I was paying €20k a year to be in college, I know I'd be getting the most out of everything that I could...


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  • #102
    siltirocker
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,846 ✭✭✭siltirocker


    Right
    I wouldn't call it a right to have 3rd Level education.

    I would call it a right to have the opportunity of a 3rd level education.

    And those who have the chance to seize that opportunity should feel privileged.


  • #103
    TerrorFirmer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 29,930 ✭✭✭✭TerrorFirmer


    Right
    While people should most certainly appreciate the education system in place in this country, anyone who considers it an actual 'right' as opposed to incredibly opportunistic privilege is an idiot.


  • #104
    Pilotdude5
    Closed Accounts Posts: 619 ✭✭✭Pilotdude5


    ProudDUB wrote: »
    That is a bit silly and very, very naive imo. There has to be some way to quantify and measure the academic qualifications and training that people have.

    Would you want to be operated on by a doctor who had not achieved all of the academic qualifications required to be a doctor? Who do you want to operate on you? The dude who spent 7 years doing medicine in UCD or The College of Surgeons, plus whatever other stuff that they have to do to become trained surgeons. Or the dude who spent all his time cutting up dead rats in his basement because anatomy and whatnot is something that he is really, really interested in? :rolleyes:

    What cars/trains/planes would you rather travel in? The ones made by companies who employ engineers who have studied the laws of physics, gravity, mechanics etc etc, and have degrees to prove it? Or ones made by the company who employs some dude who like to blow $hit up in his basement, because it is fun and interesting? :confused:

    Thats not what I'm saying at all though. They still study and get qualifications.

    Take for example my Mother. She is Qualified in both Psychiatric nursing and general and has two degrees. Obviously a very hard working individual.

    But wait I lied. She studied the same stuff in the 80's that students do now but they are awarded a degree and she has no degree!

    Fire her!


  • #105
    miss no stars
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,957 ✭✭✭miss no stars


    Right
    Pilotdude5 wrote: »
    Thats not what I'm saying at all though. They still study and get qualifications.

    Take for example my Mother. She is Qualified in both Psychiatric nursing and general and has two degrees. Obviously a very hard working individual.

    But wait I lied. She studied the same stuff in the 80's that students do now but they are awarded a degree and she has no degree!

    Fire her!

    And people doing the training my dad did get a degree for it but he didn't. The thing is, employers have a bit of cop on and know that if they're looking at someone who did their training in the 70s/80s the training they did would probably get them a degree these days. I think the award of degrees for things like that are to recognize that the training that's undertaken IS worthy of a degree.


  • #106
    An Coilean
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,285 ✭✭✭An Coilean


    Personally I would say it is none of the above, it is an opportunity that people should have access to based on merit and not their social background.


This discussion has been closed.
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