Opening or closing down the big higher education debate?

For anyone interested in assessing the options for higher education development, this could be a golden age. All over the developed world governments, major interest groups in society and the academy itself are voicing concern about the vitality or sustainability of the higher education sector, and are offering a bewildering array of solutions. These range [...]

Getting to the point

One politician who continues to impress is Ireland’s new Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairi Quinn. Yesterday I attended an event organised by the Royal Irish Academy at which the Minister outlined the issues facing higher education and addressed certain challenges to the academic community. Of particular significance is the Minister’s view that the CAO [...]

What’s your degree worth?

It is often claimed that university graduates earn significantly more than those without higher education qualifications. But in the United States at least (and certainly on this side of the Atlantic also) not every degree has the same impact on earning power. The US journal Chronicle of Higher Education has published details of median earnings [...]

In your dreams

Are you not experiencing the dreams you want? Well, help is at hand. or rather, it’s fitted around your head: for a mere $180 you can buy the ‘I Dream Head Massager’ which relaxes your head and allows you to have better dreams. Or of you just want a good night’s sleep, the ‘Nightweave Sleep [...]

The very latest higher education idea: pay students to drop out

Here’s an interesting initiative: Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel is offering $100,000 each to 20 students willing to leave university for two years to start their own companies. And why do this, rather than offer the incentive to graduates? Because Mr Thiel believes that ‘ideas can develop in a start-up environment much faster than at a [...]

The allure and mystery of new learning technology

Way way back, in the pre-historic age (as far as technology is concerned) of the late 1980s, as a lecturer in Trinity College Dublin, I managed to strike a deal with Apple Computers (as the company then was) under which staff and students were able to purchase the then brand new Macintosh laptops at a [...]

Funding Irish higher education

According to a report in yesterday’s Irish Times, the Irish Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn TD, has expressed concerns about higher education funding: ‘Mr Quinn also conceded yesterday that it was “hard to see” how the third-level sector could achieve the ambitions set for it by Government within the existing funding framework.’ It is good [...]

Many happy returns

Overheard at 7 am this morning at the ticket counter in a Scottish railway station. ‘Return ticket, please.’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Well no, I’m coming back here.’ ‘May I ask, where are you proposing to come back from?’ ‘Oh, it’s too early to be doing this.’

The success of higher education may depend on early childhood learning

For nearly nine years I was a member of Ireland’s National Competitiveness Council. During this time the Council at one point or another addressed most of the key economic and social issues affecting the country, and as you can imagine I frequently pushed the higher education agenda. The Council on several occasions emphasised the importance [...]

Crossing the language barriers

So let’s say you’re from Indonesia and you’d like to study management through the medium of English. Where do you go? Britain? The United States? Maybe not. In fact, it’s not at all unlikely that you’ll choose to go to Germany, and that you’ll enjoy all the amenities of Kaffee und Kuchen without ever having to [...]