TUI under pressure to end action (via Ninth Level Ireland)

Thanks to 9th level ireland for keeping note of these articles. The lifting of this directive could cause huge pressure on individual teachers. Let’s see how they respond to this likelihood..

"The Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) will be under pressure today to consider lifting industrial action in schools and colleges after a sister union decided to put the question to its executive …" (more) [Niall Murray, Irish Examiner, 27 August] … Read More

via Ninth Level Ireland

Funding higher education (via Ninth Level Ireland)

Continued push on the fees agenda..

"The cabinet will shortly consider a report from an expert group, chaired by economist, Dr Colin Hunt, on a strategy for higher education. The report has been billed by successive ministers for education as a critically important document, charting a course for the sector until 2030 …" (more) [Irish Times, 28 August] … Read More

via Ninth Level Ireland

“Pluck of The Irish”, FT.com Editorial, S&P’s slap in the face

FT.com – Pluck of the Irish http://goo.gl/UDBo “S&Ps must have felt like slap in the face. But the worst is not yet over for Ireland.”

“It is time to staunch the bleeding. As Irish state guarantees near their expiry date, some banks will not be able to refinance their balances. The government should prepare insolvent banks for forced debt-for-equity swaps, which would instantly recapitalise the banks in question and cap the government’s exposure. This cannot be done frivolously; European institutions are exposed and EU partners must be consulted. But someone must put an end to the practice of handing banks blank cheques.”

Ireland banking on the faith-based smart economy strategy (via Ninth Level Ireland)

"… However, the Government’s faith-based smart economy strategy will not provide an engine of growth and its approach is reminiscent of the fatal sense of infallibility it had about construction as a builder of prosperity …" (more) [Michael Hennigan, Finfacts, 24 August] … Read More

via Ninth Level Ireland

Registration Fees to increase by 1000 euro?

USI president Gary Redmond said the union was “gravely concerned” that third-level fees would be reintroduced “covertly” by increasing the existing €1,500 cap on the student services charge. (more from the Irish Times).

Third-level colleges urged to forge closer links-Irish Times

ANALYSIS: The Hunt Report calls for increased funding – but colleges are asked to be more efficient too, writes SEÁN FLYNN , Education Editor

THE LONG-AWAITED Hunt Report runs to over 200 pages and provides a comprehensive overview of the third-level system.

There is no Big Idea at its core and little that will surprise. The report draws freely – and sometimes at length – on earlier reports on higher education and the skills deficit. Its key finding – that a “persistently” underfunded system requires major additional supports – is an echo of the 2004 OECD report on higher education in Ireland. This also backed a quantum leap in funding and the return of student contribution through fees or loans. But it has never been implemented. (more)

Economist says lessons not learned from crisis

Morning Ireland

Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Economist and Nobel Prize winner, says careful spending rather than wholesale cuts is the key to long-term economic health
Listen here to Radio 1 Morning Ireland

Prof Cronin (DCU, Humanities) Against “Market Totalitarianism”,The New McCarthyism

Alliance of secular and faith thinkers needed’

ÉIBHIR MULQUEEN, Irish Times..

Sat, Aug 21, 2010

“NEW McCARTHYISM”: THE EMERGENCE of new forms of political dissidence, uniting believers and secular critical thinkers and activists, was needed in contemporary Ireland to counter “market totalitarianism”, the Merriman Summer School was told yesterday.

Prof Michael Cronin of Dublin City University’s faculty of humanities and social sciences said the requirement of empathy was a fundamental feature of a successful democratic society.

The challenge for religious believers and progressive political thinkers was to develop and strengthen “the empathetic imagination”, he added.

He said this was particularly the case in times of crisis when everyone from single mothers to public sector health workers were being scapegoated.

Ireland, like many other countries, was subject to “market totalitarianism”, where every area of life, not just the economic, was subject to the logic of the market, he said.

“An Irish version of market totalitarianism is a domestic McCarthyism where every sector of Irish society is subject to the cost-benefit rationale of the market as demonstrated by the recent McCarthy report and the planned deliberations over the sale of State assets,” he said.

“The result is that human beings are seen as purely instrumental means to economic ends and if they are not fit for economic purpose, they are considered valueless,” he said. (more)

It’s time to make the super-rich pay their fair share, Letter to Irish Examiner, Fri 13th August 2010

IN March, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan stated in the Dáil that the full cost of bailing out Anglo Irish Bank would require €22 billion from the state. All indications now suggest that much more will be required.
(more)

Tuition fees: a DIT perspective (via University Blog)

Two higher education presidents disagree on the return of fees

The Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) is sometimes described as Ireland's largest higher education institution; whether this description fits depends a little on how you count the students, but it is certainly big by Irish standards. Over the decades DIT has been assembled by merging a variety of different institutions and colleges around Dublin, some of them coming to the mix with a very specific mission and portfolio. It has its own degree a … Read More

via University Blog