Science and Engineering Education Cuts Coming

[mothball]

That’s a pretty bold statement, Wombat. As an electronic engineer I’ve worked with graduates from ITs and universities and all of them are equally crap when they first join. The fact that they all did piss easy maths for leaving cert means nothing four to five years later.
TBH, even the more tricky stuff, such as Laplace and Z transforms can be learned by anyone. Less able people may just take longer. With that said, I don’t know what is on ITs courses. That may be the problem you mentioned.
Personally, I believe if someone has an enquiring mind and the ability to improvise then that person might be a good engineer. Anything else can be learned. You can’t force people to be engineers. If someone wants to work in this field then they will know themselves. It’s not as if it is some secret society. Someone on six hundred points might make a great engineer or they might just be good at regurgitating stuff from engineering books with no flair for the job.

[NM_123]

These cuts are really. Firstly for the sheer hypocrisy of this with the "knowledge economy" being bleated every other day. And secondly because modificiation of resources with 3rd level institutions is only effective if it occurs from within; for outsiders with no expertise of running the colleges implementing it will just magnify the effects of these cuts further.

[dennehym]

That’s a pretty bold statement, Wombat.

But true. Granted, the standards in Maths and English (the two LC subjects most needed in Engineering) have fallen dismally since the mid-90s when the LC Maths course syllabus was gutted of all the 'hard stuff', but that doesn't mean you can just chuck out what's left as irrelevant.

As an electronic engineer I’ve worked with graduates from ITs and universities and all of them are equally crap when they first join. The fact that they all did piss easy maths for leaving cert means nothing four to five years later.

No, because four to five years later, we've run them all through four to five years of maths they hadn't seen prior to college. Where the LC Maths comes in isn't in the quality of the graduate, but in the failure rate of the course. Of course you don't see the benefit of the LC Maths they did when they graduate, graduation acts like a high-pass filter.

Personally, I believe if someone has an enquiring mind and the ability to improvise then that person might be a good engineer.

That's not the recipe for an engineer, it's the recipe for a science grad student.
Engineering isn't about improvisation, it's about designing the system right in the first place, it's about conservatism in that design where necessary, and about being focussed on the application of the design in the real world, and how that design changes the real world we live in. It is, in short, about building things people use.

You can’t force people to be engineers. If someone wants to work in this field then they will know themselves. It’s not as if it is some secret society.

Actually, you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people in my entire secondary school who could have told you prior to my LC what an engineer actually did for a job. And the only ones who really knew were the children of engineers. Guidance Counsellors damn sure hadn't a clue, and Open Days at colleges were't about to tell you either. That's why groups like the Engineering Ireland (the group formerly known as the IEI) and the IEEE sponsor events that promote the career.
And it is not necessary to be the engineering equivalent of Feynman before you start studying engineering; anyone who can get through LC Honours Maths and LC Honours English, and who likes to build things : those are potential engineers.

[Gruffalo]

You're such a t.it.



The article doesn't say anything about Science and Education cuts. It talks about merging courses that are under-subscribed, which makes perfect sense.

Idiot.

Exactly it is about giving us better value for money. If there are undersubscribed courses they should be merged with the Institution with the best course getting the right to host the new course. Also the new faculty should be made up of the best staff from all the courses which have been merged.

The thing that shocks me is that this is not done on a regular basis. Not only will it save us money but it will improve the entire 3rd level sector as poor quality courses with low uptake will be scrapped.

I agree with the earlier posters who mentioned the need for courses on green engineering but these courses must be drawn up from scratch.

[dennehym]

Also the new faculty should be made up of the best staff from all the courses which have been merged.

Where have I heard that before? Was it when some Ministers talked about decentralisation, ignoring the point that people would have to move, uprooting families and going halfway or more across the country?
How do you move staff from UL to UCC while avoiding that? What do you do about a person's academic career? Lecturers aren't just lecturers, their primary function in every Irish university is research, and for most that means that they can't just up and move, they'd have to bring the entire lab with them; and that means moving dozens of people to move one lecturer.

Bad idea, basicly.

[Gruffalo]

Where have I heard that before? Was it when some Ministers talked about decentralisation, ignoring the point that people would have to move, uprooting families and going halfway or more across the country?
How do you move staff from UL to UCC while avoiding that? What do you do about a person's academic career? Lecturers aren't just lecturers, their primary function in every Irish university is research, and for most that means that they can't just up and move, they'd have to bring the entire lab with them; and that means moving dozens of people to move one lecturer.

Bad idea, basicly.

Of course, lets just follow your ideology and because one or two lecturers do not want to move, lets keep wasting millions on unviable, poorly subscribed courses.

It might not always be necessary for lecturers to move e.g. they may only be a small part of the merged course. And if it is, it happens in business every day, either they want the job or they dont. Either way we should not be blowing millions because a few precious souls think they are too important to move. After all the article does mention the possibility of voluntary redundancies.

[dennehym]

My "ideology"? One or two won't "want to move"?
You're talking about seriously stuffing up an academic's career, moving them from their home, relocating their lab to what may well be a substandard facility, and demanding that all their grad students and colleagues either do the same move or else mangle their own academic careers, all in an experiment to increase efficiency in a manner that was already tried and failed in the Civil Service.

Look, you need to stop thinking that a lecturer's job is to lecture. They might be hired under that job title, but their contract renewal is contingent on their research activities. They'll move across or even out of the country in the pursuit of the furtherance of that career; they won't do it so an incompetent government can claim to be making great strides in efficiency in teaching, when in fact they'll be doing nothing of the sort. This is just getting everyone in the same room so you can turn the lights out in the other rooms. It's not about teaching better or anything of the sort.

And don't forget, you move their lab across the country and lose half their staff, and you will be throwing away all the investment that's been put in place over the years to build up that lab. A lab isn't good because it has better chairs and computers; a lab's worth is a function of who works there. Hence the ETS Walton grant scheme to bring in big-name researchers.

If you want to move these guys, you need to do it differently. Create and heavily fund centres of excellence under well-known names. Do that, and you'll have CV's coming out of your earholes. Move folks round so the course attendance numbers look good and you'll get told to sod off, because course attendance numbers are falling off across the board as the demographic distribution curve changes in Ireland. In other words, the problem of having fewer 18-year-olds overall cannot be fixed next year by moving where they go to study. It just cripples our research facilities in the medium and long term. This is the academic equivalent of the mid-eighties decision in the health boards to save money by firing the cleaning staff, and letting the next guys sort out the MRSA bug problem....

[Seos]

We need to look at maths and science in primary and secondary schools, when I went to school the way maths was thought was a joke, dont know if that has changed?

Not just in schools but throughout society. It's completely acceptable to say "I'm just bad at maths" and give up on it even though I think most people are better at maths then they think they are.

[wombat]

anyone who can get through LC Honours Maths and LC Honours English, and who likes to build things : those are potential engineers.

The point about LC higher maths is that it proves that the kid has a basic ability in the subject and should be able to move on to the more complicated maths which are needed to study engineering. My concern about the quality of the courses was when I asked a newly qualified Chemical engineer to check a simple calculation I had done using Bernoulli's equation (I hadn't used it in 20 years & had to look it up on the internet) - they didn't know how.
When the RTCs were set up, they did not award degrees and drew their staff from experienced engineers who did not need the same academic qualifications as university lecturers. It appears to me that they moved into the degree field without upgrading courses and staff.

[Gruffalo]

My "ideology"? One or two won't "want to move"?
You're talking about seriously stuffing up an academic's career, moving them from their home, relocating their lab to what may well be a substandard facility, and demanding that all their grad students and colleagues either do the same move or else mangle their own academic careers, all in an experiment to increase efficiency in a manner that was already tried and failed in the Civil Service.

Look, you need to stop thinking that a lecturer's job is to lecture. They might be hired under that job title, but their contract renewal is contingent on their research activities. They'll move across or even out of the country in the pursuit of the furtherance of that career; they won't do it so an incompetent government can claim to be making great strides in efficiency in teaching, when in fact they'll be doing nothing of the sort. This is just getting everyone in the same room so you can turn the lights out in the other rooms. It's not about teaching better or anything of the sort.

And don't forget, you move their lab across the country and lose half their staff, and you will be throwing away all the investment that's been put in place over the years to build up that lab. A lab isn't good because it has better chairs and computers; a lab's worth is a function of who works there. Hence the ETS Walton grant scheme to bring in big-name researchers.

If you want to move these guys, you need to do it differently. Create and heavily fund centres of excellence under well-known names. Do that, and you'll have CV's coming out of your earholes. Move folks round so the course attendance numbers look good and you'll get told to sod off, because course attendance numbers are falling off across the board as the demographic distribution curve changes in Ireland. In other words, the problem of having fewer 18-year-olds overall cannot be fixed next year by moving where they go to study. It just cripples our research facilities in the medium and long term. This is the academic equivalent of the mid-eighties decision in the health boards to save money by firing the cleaning staff, and letting the next guys sort out the MRSA bug problem....

A lecturers job title usually involves the word lecturer, I have never said that is all they do, although with a small amount of lecturers it is. Lose your arrogance, I have significant experience of and knowledge about the academic world.

"Both the Irish Universities Association (IUA), Institutes of Technology Ireland (IoTI), as well as Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe, have signed up to the need for rationalisation of courses."

While I know Batt O'Keefe has yet to prove any knowledge of education, the IUA and IOTI are behind it, which carries more weight than your opinion.

I wonder if you have even read the article. The IUA and IOTI are both being included in the process.

I do however agree with you on the need for Centres of Excellence.