The Higher Education Strategy Review Group, widely reported to favour the reintroduction of third-level fees, is finally due to report shortly. There is no convincing argument against the return of third-level fees. In fact, it is likely that the Irish education as a whole is damaged because of the persistence of ‘free’ third-level education. The [...]
The Irish Times carries another front page report on grade inflation in the Irish education sector, citing an unpublished internal TCD study. The statistics presented do seem to indicate a remarkable rise in the percentages of higher grades at third level. This is taken as evidence of grade inflation (I hate the phrase ‘dumbing down’). [...]
Tomorrow I am participating in a public debate on research funding hosted by the Long Room Hub in Trinity. The debate is entitled Academic Research: is it of any value to the taxpayer?. Speaking on the opposite side (of course argung that it is of value) is Professor Poul Holm (TCD) and Professor Luke O’Neill (TCD). The [...]
Here is a link to the slides from a presentation on the Smart Economy by Eoin O’Leary and I at the Dublin Economics Workshop in Kenmare this weekend.
Yesterday’s Innovation magazine of the Irish Times carried an article on the Government’s Innovation Taskforce which included comments from myself and Karl Whelan of UCD. Karl writes some more about this topic here. My comments were based on a conversation with the writer of the article, Fiona Reddan, and a piece I had written. The [...]
The Irish Times today carries a piece I wrote about the setting of targets to measure innovation – which have implications for the entire science community and the economy.
Colleague Eoin O’Leary has a fine article in the Irish Times today, which presents a sobering analysis of the repeated mistakes of Irish governments due to blocks in thinking. The thinking behind policy-making presented is certainly what Thomas Sowell would refer to as a “vision of the anointed”. One is reminded of the sub-title of [...]
This is a link to an article of mine in today’s Irish Times Innovation magazine on the UCD/TCD research merger and why it is unlikely to deliver on its targets.
Saturday’s Irish Times contains a report by Sean Flynn on a proposed UCD-TCD research merger. The report says that the Government is backing the merger, amid growing impatience in official circles about the “failure” of the €1 billion investment in third-level research to deliver jobs. I don’t know why failure is in inverted comments. In [...]