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“Universities under siege“ President Higgins sounds the alarm

  • 11-06-2021 9:10am
    #1
    Caquas
    Registered Users Posts: 1,294 ✭✭✭


    President Higgins gave a tongue-lashing to the leaders of our higher education institutions, warning about the quality of education and grade inflation.

    The quality of university degrees, too, continues to be a source of great concern, with evidence of grade inflation that, alas, does not reflect improved standards of scholarship, but rather an ongoing slip in examination standards, emanating from pressure, sourced internally and external to the university, to report the achievement of continually higher ‘outputs’.

    Getting a mixed response from his erstwhile academic colleagues but it is not much of a defence to say things were worse in the 1980s.
    https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/president-higgins-and-higher-education-1.4589705

    There was a time when the President of Ireland was severely circumscribed in what s/he could say and even where s/he could speak. Now, no one is surprised that the President gives an all-encompassing and highly critical speech on higher education at an online event in which that most politicised of academics - Noam Chomsky- is the keynote speaker.
    https://president.ie/en/media-library/speeches/on-academic-freedom-address-at-the-scholars-at-risk-ireland-all-european-academies-conference


Comments

  • #2
    Geuze
    Registered Users Posts: 13,062 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    In the past, maybe 10/15 years ago:

    2.2 = 55%-62%
    2.1 = 62%-69%

    Then it was changed to

    2.2 = 50-59%
    2.1 = 60-69%


  • #3
    Ficheall
    Registered Users Posts: 9,018 ✭✭✭Ficheall


    It's been obvious for quite some time.. Dunno if it's really sounding the alarm..


  • #4
    Caquas
    Registered Users Posts: 1,294 ✭✭✭Caquas


    Ficheall wrote: »
    It's been obvious for quite some time.. Dunno if it's really sounding the alarm..

    Obvious to everyone except those in power.

    Who else in authority has acknowledged this problem?

    Definitely not successive Ministers for Education who fall over themselves praising each year’s Leaving Certs on their outstanding results although we know there is a bell curve which controls all grades and there are howls of anguish if an exam paper was not entirely predictable. How many copycat essays do the examiners read without batting an eye?

    And what about all those Ph.Ds handed out to eternal students for re-hashing familiar ideas.


  • #5
    machiavellianme
    Registered Users Posts: 12,400 ✭✭✭✭machiavellianme


    Good man Michael D. I left academia after being scolded for giving a 0 to a paper that had written "Sorry, didn't study - see you in the Autumn" but was encouraged by the head of the school to find a way to pass it. 6 years prior I was given a 0 on a paper where I had the correct method but a misplaced decimal meant that my answer was wrong. I was told that in engineering, little mistakes can mean life or death or millions of pounds so why should you be rewarded for getting the wrong answer, even if you did the right thing?


  • #6
    Caquas
    Registered Users Posts: 1,294 ✭✭✭Caquas


    machiavellianme wrote: »
    Good man Michael D. I left academia after being scolded for giving a 0 to a paper that had written "Sorry, didn't study - see you in the Autumn" but was encouraged by the head of the school to find a way to pass it. 6 years prior I was given a 0 on a paper where I had the correct method but a misplaced decimal meant that my answer was wrong. I was told that in engineering, little mistakes can mean life or death or millions of pounds so why should you be rewarded for getting the wrong answer, even if you did the right thing?

    Michael D. is a shrewd judge of his audience and his attack is cleverly focussed. He understands that many Irish academics have experienced the sort of pressure you experienced and they are sick of the managerial types who now lead our institutions of higher learning. So he blames grade inflation (and much else) on the new ethos of delivering “outputs”, not on the academics. More broadly, he is not happy that universities are now dominated by career-orientated courses, leaving the humanities, his home turf, in the shade.

    Still, he left the cat out of the bag and it won’t be easy to ignore.


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  • #7
    Caquas
    Registered Users Posts: 1,294 ✭✭✭Caquas


    Breda O’Brien is not a typical Michael D. supporter but she agrees with his views on our Universities.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/underfunding-of-universities-leading-to-blind-spots-on-human-rights-1.4590883

    I wish people who blame “chronic underfunding” for systemic failings in health/education/transport/sport would offer some figures to back their claim. (If they quote spending as a share of our GDP, don’t waste your time).

    Still, teaching young people about the idea of a university is a good suggestion. What about the relationship between student accommodation, personal growth and learning? So many of our students are forced by high rents into long commutes to their colleges. Surely any self-respecting University should have Halls of Residence for all students? And academics should be obliged to live among the students (only joking! But I’d love to see the faces of our top Professors if they thought they had to mingle with the young riff-raff who crowd their lectures)


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