Science and society: a question of education

Guest blog by Dr Cormac O’ Raifeartaigh, Lecturer in Physics, Waterford Institute of Technology and
author of the science blog ANTIMATTER

This year marks the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific society. The Society was founded to provide a forum for discussion amongst ‘natural philosophers’ of the astonishing discoveries that were emerging from the new experimental sciences. (The invention of the microscope had opened up a micro-world hitherto inaccessible to the senses, while the telescope had revolutionized astronomy). However, the Royal Society had a second aim that is often overlooked: to disseminate the discoveries of the natural philosophers to society at large, i.e. to share the new discoveries with all men, rich and poor.

What would the founding fathers make of today’s world? No doubt Robert Boyle would be astonished that the reality of his speculative ‘corpuscules’ had been established beyond doubt (now called atoms and molecules) and form the basis of all modern chemistry. Issac Newton would be amazed that his all-encompassing theory of gravitation had been replaced by a theory that describes gravity as a curvature of space and time – with dramatic supporting evidence.

But what would dismay those early scientists is the lack of progress that has been achieved in the second aim of the Royal Society. A knowledge of the basic ideas and methods of science is as unknown to the general populace today as it was in the time of Newton. Far from becoming an indispensible part of the human experience like music or history, the discipline of science has remained an esoteric subject confined to a specialized few. Indeed, while scientists’ understanding of the laws of nature has progressed beyond bounds since the time of Newton, this knowledge has remained inaccessible to the vast majority of the populace.

Does it matter that that there is a comprehensive lack of general scientific knowledge amongst the general public in most developed nations? No doubt historians complain of a lack of historical knowlege in society, French teachers of a lack of appreciation of French literature, etc. Why should science be different?

I think science is different, for two fundamental reasons. First, as our world becomes more and more driven by technology, many of the challenges facing society involve a basic understanding of science. Issues such as the safety of commercial nuclear power, the ethics of embryonic stem cell research, and the cost of action to curb greenhouse gas emissions all demand a certain understanding of both basic science and the strengths and limitations of the methods of science. Democratic governments cannot act without public support, so it is vital that the public can form an informed opinion. For example, the huge media campaign surrounding an invalid study that purported to show a link between the MMR vaccine and autism showed a total lack of understanding of how scientific consensus is reached, and had serious repercussions. In the climate change ‘debate’, much of the media scepticism concerning man-made global warming stems from a genuine lack of understanding of how science is done, and how scientific consensus is reached (IPCC shenanigans notwithstanding).

A second, and often overlooked, reason for a public understanding of science is that science is part of the human experience, just as history and music are. Not everyone may want to partake in the actual discovery of the workings of the natural world, but they deserve to know what has been discovered! This science-as-culture argument was first articulated by the physicist C.P. Snow when he realised that he could engage in literary discussion with colleagues in the humanities, but they knew nothing of his subject. Indeed, he felt that the general public were being cheated out of a scientific education.

This coincides with my own belief, and that of many scientists, that the general public has a right to know the discoveries of modern science. Indeed, I believe society also has a right to know how those discoveries were made, as the story of unfolding scientific discovery is an important part of human history. (I regularly give public talks on cosmology and it is no exaggeration to say that people find the story of the emerging evidence for the Big Bang model at least interesting as the theory itself). From the conjecture of the biological cell to the structure of DNA, from the atomic hypothesis to the search for the Higgs boson, the story of scientific discovery gives us confidence in the methods of science. (It is also the easiest way to understand the basic concepts of science).

So what is the solution? How do we increase public awareness of science? I suspect the solution lies in education. It is striking that when we talk of literacy, it is understood to mean a proficiency in reading, writing and arithmetic. It could be argued that a knowledge of basic modern science should also be a part of this package – indeed is possibly about 200 years overdue.

In Ireland, children do encounter some science in school a young age; however, it is a small amount at an early stage and by school leaving age, the vast majority have long opted out of scientific subjects. This pattern is also seen in the UK, US and other English-speaking countries. One reason is that science subjects can be difficult, and require long hours of study. A more fundamental reason is the system itself, in which we force our young to make a choice between science and other subjects.

Perhaps this is what should be changed. It is interesting that in many continental countries – such as France and in Germany – students continue at least one science subject up to Bacc or Abitur (not necessarily as an examinable subject). This seems a very sensible approach and may be responsible for the far higher level of debate on scientific issues one sees in the French media (I’m told this is also true in Germany).

I don’t know what the solution is, but we certainly need one – if only because the response to global challenges that are scientific in nature may be dominated by vested interests, or by uninformed media comment, as is already happening in the US.

Higher education: measuring success

On June 11, 2009, the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee assessed (amongst other things) the allocation of money to and by Science Foundation Ireland. At the end of the session the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr John Buckley, reflected briefly on how one might assess whether the state is getting an adequate return from the investment in research carried out in universities. This is how he summarised the issue:

The challenge is to manage commercialisation such that there is a return on the State investment. This applies to the university sector where there is a need to ensure the process of protecting intellectual property rights and licensing and so on are in place and exploiting research outputs to ensure they are optimised. Then there is the level of industry or industrial promotion. The challenge here is to ensure there is a pay-off for State assistance and investment in research and development. The point is that this pay-off will be increased to the degree that it is linked with commercialisation and market awareness.

There is very little in that statement to argue with, but it needs to be said that in political debates in particular there is often an impatience with what some might regard as the rather vague metrics offered as justification for research investment. The politician’s instinct is always to look for jobs, and to look for them in the here and now. Having got used to sums invested in the IDA producing employment in a short time frame, they expect university research to do the same. But as I have noted previously in this blog, the economic impact of research is often in the job creation that it encourages third parties to make in the shorter term, and in the commercialisation impact in the much longer term. But it is dangerous to look for a ‘pay-off’ in any direct way in the short term. To that extent, universities should not encourage such misleading analysis by themselves offering the prospects of jobs in larger numbers directly created by university research, as this promotes a misunderstanding of why research should be funded.

But even when we assess university degree programmes, how do we measure success? The number of students admitted into higher education? The number of successful graduates? The number of access students? The ‘value added’ of improving results (which are sometimes taken as evidence of ‘dumbing down’, perhaps perversely)? Student satisfaction? Foreign direct investment in areas where graduates provide skills?

It seems clear to me that we are living in an age where everything that is funded is assessed in terms of whether the funded activities satisfy key performance indicators and can therefore be seen to provide value for money. This is an understandable approach, but its application to higher education is complex. We probably cannot – and probably should not – avoid this movement, but we need to develop a much clearer approach as to what indicates that investment in higher education has provided an appropriate return to the taxpayer. We may want to say that the return is vital but (literally) immeasurable: for example that it is demonstrated in an enlightened, skilled, intelligent, entrepreneurial, cultured and adaptable population. But that may not satisfy the spirit of the age that wants greater accountability in a more direct sense. So as a sector we should lead in developing an understanding of how what we do can be justified in such a spirit. This may now be one of our most urgent tasks.

What next for Ireland? – Education and research

Last September, at the ‘Global Economic Forum’ held in Farmleigh, former Intel chief executive and chairman Craig Barrett created something of a stir when he suggested that Ireland was under-performing in both education and research and development, and that these failings needed to be corrected if the country was to pull itself out of recession. I wasn’t at the Forum (hey, I wasn’t invited), but I gather from some who were there that Barrett electrified the proceedings and set the tone for a significant debate.

Yesterday evening I was able, along with a few hundred others, to hear him develop his theme a little more at a public lecture organised by the Royal Irish Academy. It was a fascinating talk given by someone with an external perspective but with significant inside knowledge of Ireland.

In his lecture, he set out what he described as some ‘observations’ on current global conditions, followed by a list of things that Ireland needs to get right, and finally by a list of proposals or recommendations for the country.

His observations were as follows:

• Levels of income in any country are closely connected with the educational attainments of the population.
• Levels of productivity – which are vital for future growth – are closely linked to the successful harnessing of new technology .
• It is possible to identify the significant technologies of the future: nanotechnology, nano- and micro-electronics, photonics, biotechnology, new materials and alternative energy.
• Future economic growth will depend critically on entrepreneurship and successful start-ups.

From this he developed his list of national needs:

• A national education system that compares well with the best in the world and is based on excellence. He pointed out that Ireland’s education system has inadequate public investment and performs poorly in vital subjects such as mathematics and science.
• A system of higher education and research that promotes and values basic research, that encourages spin-outs from that research, and that allows universities to be ‘wealth creation centres’. Currently, he believes, Ireland’s universities lack proper expertise in relation to these goals, and their global standing is not as good as it could be.
• The right environment, particularly as regards taxation, IT infrastructure, and a culture that values risk-taking.

Then he presented 10 recommendations for Ireland:

(1) Our goal should be that Ireland’s education system becomes number 1 globally in all subjects, taking account in particular of our current failings in mathematics and science.
(2) We need to have excellent teachers who are truly experts in the subjects they teach. The teaching profession should be rewarded on the basis of performance, not seniority.
(3) Our education system should emphasise 21st century skills such as problem solving and interdisciplinarity, and should rely less on rote learning.
(4) More students need to study mathematics and science at third level, and we should reform the CAO points system in order to ‘bias the system towards the results we need’.
(5) Ireland’s universities need to focus more on delivering start-ups, following the example of Stanford or MIT.
(6) Ireland needs to implement the Lisbon target of investing 3 per cent of GDP in research and development; right now we are only managing about half of that.
(7) We need to ‘grow the economy from within’, as foreign direct investment is unlikely to go back to previous levels. Future growth must come from indigenous start-ups and from entrepreneurship, and we need to have a framework that encourages and facilitates this.
(8) Ireland needs to focus – we cannot do everything, so we need to prioritise those areas in which we can add value and lead.
(9) We need to achieve a dramatic improvement in our IT infrastructure.
(10) Ireland needs to want to compete with the world and to base its economic and business systems on that ambition.

This, it seems to me, represents a good basis for a new national strategy.

Ramshackle governance?

One of the more outspoken UK academics specialising in higher education policy is Professor Roger Brown of Liverpool Hope University. He is an interesting participant in debates on higher education not least because of his background, having been a Vice-Chancellor of one university, having also worked in several others, and having been chief executive of the Higher Education Quality Council, the forerunner of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). He has not been afraid to express views that run counter to current fashion, for example suggesting in 2008 that the pursuit of ‘world class’ status for some universities in the UK may be not only a waste of time but potentially also counter-productive. I confess that I don’t always agree with his points, but he is a lively contributor to debate and as such plays an important role.

His most recent comment – actually, not yet ‘recent’ in the sense that he has yet to make it formally at a lecture in the University of Portsmouth on February 9 – is that English university governance is ‘ramshackle’ and not well suited to deliver good governance. He feels that most governing bodies are too big to be effective at decision-making, but not big enough to be useful as a forum representative of staff, student and external stakeholder interests. So he suggests that the current model should be replaced by one where there are three ‘courts’ representing each of these three interest groups, and these courts in turn should nominate the members of a smaller ’supervisory board’ that will have the ultimate governance responsibilities. However, the Vice-Chancellor would be required to report annually to each of these ‘courts’ and would have to satisfy them that their interests were being advanced.

I take the view that a review of how universities are governed is certainly timely, and in that sense Professor Brown’s address is useful. Whether his proposed remedy for governance problems is desirable, or indeed workable, is another matter. If, as seems likely, the three ‘courts’ would have very different views on what a university should do strategically and operationally, such a system might end up being quite chaotic. In addition, separate stakeholder governance bodies would very probably adopt highly partisan views on strategy, and might see it as attractive to drill down into detailed operational matters at the expense of overall strategy and policy, and could ultimately paralyze the institution.

However, there is little doubt that effective and appropriate governance is something that needs to be be worked on in higher education, in Ireland no less than the United Kingdom, and so I hope that his comments provoke a wider debate.

Administrative flab?

According to the Sunday Independent newspaper (and you have to scroll down the article a bit), the Minister for Education and Science has ‘warned third-level colleges and institutes of technology that they must cut out the administrative flab and slim down in the same manner as their second and primary level educational counterparts’, and that university presidents must ‘run their institutions more efficiently.’

There is of course an important point to be made and repeated wherever possible: that the core activities of universities are teaching and scholarship, and that this should be reflected in how they are organized and staffed. But it also needs to be stated clearly that efficient administration is a necessary part of our business, and that academics should where possible be allowed to focus on academic activities rather than be diverted into administration. The presence of administrative staff in universities is not of itself a sign of inefficient management, and the ideal model of a higher education institution is not one where there are only academics. In the same way, and in the interests of proper community building on the campus, administrative and support and technical employees should be equal, and equally respected, members of staff.

The Minister’s statement (and it is similar to what I have heard him, and others, say orally) suggests at least by strong implication that Irish universities spend more of their resources on administrators than is appropriate. This is also a view not backed by any of the available evidence. In terms of international benchmarks, a much smaller percentage of staff in Irish universities – whether measured in headcount or in salary costs – works in administration than is the case in any comparable OECD country. As we also well know by now, Irish universities have managed to produce well respected graduates and to carry out world class research on the basis of a unit of resource that is substantially lower than in any other western country. To suggest, therefore, that Irish universities are inefficient is highly questionable.

But the Minister has used a different benchmark: he has compared universities with primary and secondary schools. But however much we should admire schools in the Irish educational system, it would be extraordinary to suggest that the levels of administration that are required for them should somehow set a target for third level. Universities and third level colleges operate in a wholly different way, with completely different administrative requirements.

I am concerned that this is another statement appearing to criticise the universities without any evidence to back it up, and indeed with the available evidence strongly pointing the other way; and that statements such as this may prove to be divisive between different categories of staff within the institutions. And it also represents another statement that pre-empts a review process that the Minister has himself set up – this time the so-called ‘forensic audit’.

As I have noted before, there is undoubtedly scope for reform and change in Irish higher education. But the likelihood of this being introduced in a reasonable and effective manner declines when statements are put about that undermine reviews already under way and where these statements are not based on any available evidence. Finally, if the Minister believes he has reason to be genuinely concerned about this he might first have a meeting with us to outline his concerns and the evidence on which they are based; reform is not about shouting unfounded criticisms through a megaphone.

Having a party?

Here’s something from the United States that you may need to become familiar with, though I hope it won’t last long: the so-called ‘Tea Party Movement‘. I’ve been kind of aware of it for a little while, but for me it’s been one of those phenomena you know you’re not going to like if you try to find out more, so why not leave it in somewhere in the background while focusing on more congenial stuff? Well, Sarah Palin delivered a speech there last night, and as she has some entertainment value for me I decided to overcome my reluctance and find out more.

I decided to start by looking at their mission statement, and the first thing I was able to take away from it was that the Tea Party Movements likes capital letters at the beginning of Every Important Word. Here’s what they say they believe in:

Tea Party Patriots as an organization believes in the Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, and Free Markets.

But the Important Words do also reveal more – they are the buzzwords of the American conservative right. And so these folks are a movement that wants to portray the intellectual foundations of the United States as being concerned with free markets, gun ownership and low taxation; and to make that connection they have taken a name that is intended to suggest that they represent the true spirit of the American Revolution. Whether this has worked is another matter; on the whole the general view of them appears to be of fairly extreme right wingers with a slightly nutty approach to politics. Or at least, that is what some commentators are suggesting, and so maybe what these folks needed was a person who could reject such talk as the elitist, out-of-touch rantings of liberal intellectuals.

And so here comes the folksy Ms Palin, invited by the Tea Party guys to address their first convention, and with just such a message. Interestingly, she has felt the need to build up to the event by explaining why she is doing it, a kind of getting in her justification first. This has come via her Facebook page (and interestingly, Ms Palin’s main internet presence is there), via an opinion piece she wrote for the newspaper USA Today, and on her Twitter page.

And what did she say at the convention? I’ve read several accounts of her speech, and for the life of me I can’t work out what message she was trying to get across, beyond the charge that Barack Obama is no good and that the Tea Party people are Just Wonderful. So maybe the significance is what some have suggested it to be, that she has identified this particular movement as the base on which she will build her expected challenge for the presidency in 2012.

We shall have to wait and see. I do like the idea of her candidacy because of the sheer entertainment value it promises. But a little bit of me is terrified that we may find that this can gather a bigger group of supporters than we (or at any rate I) would like to imagine. Let us hope that Obama finds the perfect formula for success.

How does higher education change people?

I think it must have been in 1976. It was certainly around about that time. A well-known debating society in the university where I was then a student organised a debate on apartheid, the political system (or aberration) that was at that time still governing South Africa. Various people were there to speak for the motion: I don’t really remember what it was, but it must have been some variant on the theme that apartheid was a Bad Thing (which of course it was). A man from some South African organisation or other based in London was there to speak against, or maybe his point was that the South African political system was badly misunderstood. None of that was really worth a raising of the eyebrows, everyone was there to do and say what the script expected of them, including the loud shouts of righteous indignation (myself very much included) from the floor whenever the Man From South Africa made any point excusing or justifying his country’s politics. But the thing that really got everyone going and that caused both excitement and temper was the fact that there was a second person opposing the motion, and heaven help us, that second person was a student. No, not a rich South African kid spending time away from home: it was a normal Irish student. Defending apartheid!

What was shocking was, in the first place, that really anybody in Ireland could defend the indefensible (and nothing has changed my mind, apartheid was totally and utterly indefensible). But perhaps more than that, what was shocking to others present was that a person could become a student in a modern university and still hold conservative or right wing views. There were certain things you expected of students back then: that they stayed in bed as late as possible; that they did not get a haircut more than twice a year; and that each and every one of their views was politically left wing and socially liberal.

Maybe if I were transported back to 1976 with my current experiences and views I might worry a tad that political and social views in the student body were held in check by a pretty rigorous orthodoxy, and that debates rarely involved a thoughtful balance. Maybe. But in this decade, and for that matter that last two decades, I would not have been much concerned about that, as many students turned much more conservative and conventional – or at least so it has seemed to me. The left-leaning and liberal views are still there, but they face alternative positions in the student body that are much more traditional and respectable.

But does today’s student body, and maybe the university community generally, more accurately reflect the wider views in society, or is the pattern in the colleges still different? An answer of sorts has been given to that question by a survey, undertaken by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and reported in the US journal Chronicle of Higher Education, into the ‘Diverging Influences of the College Degree & Civic Learning on American Beliefs’. In summary this survey of a sample of the US population indicates that those with university degrees are more liberal and tolerant than those who do not have a higher education qualification; but not more knowledgeable when it comes to ‘civic literacy’ (i.e. knowledge about political history, political processes and political ideas). So for example, those with a bachelor’s degree will look much more favourably on same sex marriage, and much less favourably on the role of religion in schools. They will be less likely to believe that American institutions are a force for good, but ironically will be less likely to know what those institutions are.

The survey doesn’t tell us what causes these changes in attitude, or how higher education can accompany (as it could hardly cause) ignorance in relation to civic matters. But it gives us an insight into what goes on in a student’s mind, and therefore how education can influence and change politics and ideas. And perhaps it can prompt us to ask whether this is what we expect education to do, and therefore whether we do or do not want to reform it. It would, to my mind, be extremely interesting to undertake a similar survey in Ireland in order to get a perspective on the impact of higher education here. And it might allow us to see also whether student attitudes have changed over the years, as my gut instinct tells me (maybe wrongly) that they have.

It would also allow us to have an intelligent discussion around what, apart from training, we want and expect higher education to do, and how we would like it to change society for good. And in the end, that is much more important than asking how many universities would be just right for Ireland.

It’s really the limit!

Yesterday afternoon I was driving in Dublin city centre for the first time since the new 30 km/h speed limit was imposed. You couldn’t help being aware of it, as electronic billboards had been shouting at us about the new city centre limits for a while. So as I entered Dame Street (my first 30 km/h location), I put my foot gently on the brake, and settled down for a quiet ride.

A quiet ride? Like hell! The elderly lady ahead of me was working on the principle that if 30 km/h is good, 20 is probably better, and as she was crawling along she was clearly annoying other drivers to the point of fury, and so all around we had a clanking of car horns, and one idiot behind the wheel of a 10-year-old BMW overtook her (and me) with oncoming traffic, doing 60 or 70 I reckoned. As for the law, I could see no Garda (police) presence anywhere, and I felt vaguely cheated that nobody officially noted my heroic serenity in the face of all that excitement. And my law-abiding nature.

I could not credibly complain about the 30 km/h speed limit. After all, one of my early acts as President of DCU was to impose a campus-wide speed limit of 20 mph (i.e. 30 km/h), and every so often if I am feeling really officious I’ll make a point of stopping a boy racer going at 60 and telling him he’ll be barred from the campus if he does it again. It’s always a ‘he’, by the way. And yet, as I travelled along Dame Street I couldn’t help wondering whether this new speed limit was doing any good. Before I reached the end of the street I had also seen a car stall, with the driver clearly not practiced at combining the correct gear and acceleration with the new speed limit. And there was all that ongoing aggression.

Also, if that’s supposed to be a genuine speed limit (as distinct from a policy stroke), you had better police it rigorously. There was no sign of that yesterday. And we could, as a nation, probably do with some compulsory remedial tuition, learning for example thad a steady speed of 30 km/h in city traffic actually gets you there faster. Though to be fair, I’m not sure I believe that, but I think we should pass it round as dogma anyway.

Recruiting international students

Still on the subject of the interview on Morning Ireland by the Minister for Education and Science (see my last post), it was good to see him placing some emphasis on international student recruitment. He indicated – and this is most welcome – that work is being done to improve the visa system. The current inefficiencies, bureaucracies and slow response rates when international students apply for Irish visas is losing us students, but more importantly still is compromising our reputation overseas.

The Minister was also keen to point out that a high level group he has established will be setting ‘ambitious targets’ for international student recruitment, affecting all universities and colleges. I suspect that target setting is the wrong exercise, and will not add much to our success as a country. Universities and other higher education institutions are already working hard to increase the number of international students.

In some ways, the recruitment of students is only one aspect of all this, and arguably the easiest. What is perhaps more important is that Ireland does not become active in other countries just as a recruiter of students, but rather that we engage with partners in those countries and establish links that add value at various levels, including research collaboration. We should also be willing to offer our support in those countries, perhaps through the occasional secondment of academics and through staff and student exchanges. We need to ensure that where we do recruit students, we provide them with support and advice that will help them make the cultural transition, and that we respect and support their specific needs.

And finally, it is important that we consider carefully what the optimum number of international students would be in our institutions. International students are most welcome, and add much through their different experiences, insights and cultures. But this works best when the mix between domestic and international students is carefully judged. In my experience, the number of international students as a proportion of the whole student body should not exceed a figure of around or just below 20 per cent.

There is much we can usefully do to build and enhance the international student experience. However, I suspect that target setting is the least of it.

Doing it all over again – and again – for the very first time!

I do hope it was a slip of the tongue! On RTE’s programme Morning Ireland on Thursday, the Minister for Education and Science, Mr Batt O’Keeffe TD, was very positive about the potential impact of the higher education strategy review currently under way, where I understand that the steering group will report in a month or two. This, he said, was so important because it was ‘the first time ever’ that a comprehensive review of higher education had been undertaken. Really? ‘First time ever’?

I’m afraid it’s not even nearly the first time. The last occasion was only very recent – the OECD review of Irish higher education commissioned by the then Minister, Mr Noel Dempsey TD. It reported in 2004 and made a number of very important recommendations, which were widely discussed. But not implemented. And now forgotten, at any rate as we see in the Department of Education. We must all hope that in, say, 2016 the Minister’s successor will not be announcing that a comprehensive strategic review of Irish higher education was to be set up for the first time ever. But just in case, I’ll be there, and will certainly be referring back to 2010.