Fight Fees! Etc...

delta_bravo

mloc wrote: »

The more I read here and otherwise, a total overhaul of the education system appears needed.

A few thoughts, ideas maybe.

1) Remove the leaving cert points system as the sole entry requirement to most courses.

Replace it with a system more in line with that of UCAS, where a detailed application process (personal statements etc), interviews, volunteer work and some weight given to the leaving cert. This would make people think more about their choices and provide more informed, balanced and interested students. It would certainly go some way to remove "pick blind and cram" CAO applicants.

Wouldnt agree with this, one of the main advantages of the lc is the applicants anonymity which makes bias impossible. This wouldnt be the case for interviews and statements.

scop

The Free Fees t-shirts seem to be adorned with the SWP logo (the blocky fist). Those feckers love to ruin things.

Stepherunie

scop wrote: »

The Free Fees t-shirts seem to be adorned with the SWP logo (the blocky fist). Those feckers love to ruin things.

That was the DIT SU one.

The UCDSU one just said no to fees and and the UCDSU logo on it.

Het-Field

Kaptain Redeye wrote: »

Only a fraction of people will go to university, only a fraction will use public transport, but still we make the option available.

But thats not my main point; I believe that the quality of education is actually diminished the more the course is tailored to exam performance. Obviously you need exams and results are very important, but grind schools tend to turn out idiots in my experience. In my class in commerce there was a group who would consistently kick up a fuss when asked to think for themselves and had an exam overturned because the questions werent exactly on the course.

Id love a system that removed those who just coast through, but the point of 3rd level is learning and betterment, not narrow exam centric ability to quote a text book without understanding it.

I completely agree with you. The last thing an employer needs is a robot who spent two years in The Institute, and another 3 in UCD who has no thought process save for the computation of what is in black and white.

However, while only a fraction of people go to college, it was claimed in the Lisbon Agreement that we exist in a knowedge based economy. A 3rd level degree is a reasonable expectation for any employer, while a 4th level qualification is becoming almost as important. It is vital that we keep adhearing to this protocol by creating this knowledge based economy in whatever way we can. If you want to remove the learning off by heart bit, then its crucial to take a look at the way courses are being distributed.

Involvement is extra curricular activities have their merits. However, I dont believe that as a result of these merits (qwhich a relatively tiny portion of UCD benefit from(probably no more than six or seven hundred) that Fionn's idea should be binned

scop

Stepherunie wrote: »

That was the DIT SU one.

The UCDSU one just said no to fees and and the UCDSU logo on it.

Good stuff, but its not just me that recognized this surely?

Stepherunie

Oh i recognised it myself and wasn't overly impressed about it but it was there choice.

FionnMatthew

To address the conversation that Kaptain Redeye and Het-Field have been having since my post:

Perhaps I'm being overly personal about it. The system I proposed would have suited me completely. I'll tell you both why I don't think the point the Kapt. makes really makes a difference, as far as I'm concerned.

I absolutely agree with you, KR, about university being much more than grade points and library study. In my four years at UCD, I've been involved in three societies at a reasonably intense level at different times, I've gotten involved in extra-curricular activities, had marginal involvement in a student campaign, etc etc etc. I directed a Dramsoc show that went to ISDA; I attended most of the events of the Philsoc when I was in first year; I've gotten involved in, and organised plenty of extra-curricular events with the different academic departments I worked with; I valued talk highly, and sought it out - and have grown as a person and as a philosopher immeasurably since I started in UCD. I cannot speak highly enough of the effect of an environment with such a high concentration of intelligent companions, with such an ethos. The changes that stand to be wrought in such a place are immense.

I also ran a theatre company when I was in first year, and toured a show in the spring of that year. I was in a band for most of second year. Met my partner in second year too, and have been involved in a relationship ever since. I was a commuter from Donabate, for the first two years, and lived away from home for the last two.

So I agree with you. And I think that I am also so much better of a person, and of an employee, than I was, and I feel as if the effect UCD's environment has had on me has been to make so much more robust of a person of me than I was when I arrived.

But under the system I proposed, I would not have ever had to pay fees either.

It's not a particularly stringent requirement. I should think anybody who really is up to the academic standards of a university, barring anything awful happening to them, should be able to get a 2.1. It's certainly not out of the ballpark. Many of my friends did not always meet that kind of standard throughout their tenure in UCD, but I have absolutely no doubts about any of them that many of them were absolutely capable of exceeding those standards. And I believe that they could easily have done that without cutting every extracurricular activity out of their lives, or without having regular social events - because I had a pretty action packed undergraduate degree too.

I do think that people ought to meet a certain academic standard to be in a university. I agree that people stand to learn so much, and grow up a lot in uni. But that doesn't mean that everybody should go, or that we ought to make it available to people who don't meet an academic standard.

The ostensible reason a uni is there is to be a centre for academic study. The other stuff arises out of it as an invaluable side effect of having so much activity and active, vital, intelligent people in one place. It's something that people who are hard-working and apt enough to be at uni can and should take advantage of, and which can enrich their lives and character so much.

But I don't think it ought to be made available to those who aren't up to university. And here, my proposal makes it so that those who do wish to stay at uni, without meeting the standard, will have to pay for the privilege. Perhaps that's elitist, but it's an elitism that doesn't particularly offend my sensibilities, like the elitism we have about neurosurgeons.

Here's another thing. As someone who was at the high end of the curve in academic achievement, I found myself to be at a disadvantage within the new regime at UCD, introduced in my final year. The new regime is all about volume. More stringent regulation of the student body means more students turn up. Tutorials become mandatory, tutorials which, as far as I'm concerned are mostly a waste of time. People even get marks for attending them. So I HAD to waste several hours attending token tutorials, when I could have been reading my coursework.

The need for evidence to vindicate structural changes in UCD has led to tutors being instructed to inflate grades. Modularisation means that even third level modules must be open to "tourists," which can often retard the speed and depth the course coordinator can teach at. Students at the top of the curve start feeling understimulated. This should never happen.

The sheer volume of students in the new regime, and an emphasis on research for staff has led to staff being instructed to disengage from students by the administration. They are no longer supposed to entertain nearly the same level of dialogue with students. In my undergrad, I gained so much from the attention of the staff, and chose my subjects based on this sort of care and attention to pedagogy.

There were plenty of things like this. My exams were botched by a similar cattle-herding philosophy towards their organisation.

But the system I proposed makes university for the people who are really apt. It makes the whole thing about getting those people, and making them work, and making the best of them. Giving them all of the opportunities they should have, and making sure they don't get marginalized.

I think that's the sort of ethos a university that is serious about its status as such, and serious about its international standing and integrity, ought to adopt.

IMO the change I proposed wouldn't adversely affect the status of the uni as the sort of valuable place you described it as. In fact, I feel it would possibly make it more efficient in that regard.

asdasd

mloc wrote: »

The more I read here and otherwise, a total overhaul of the education system appears needed.

A few thoughts, ideas maybe.

1) Remove the leaving cert points system as the sole entry requirement to most courses.

Replace it with a system more in line with that of UCAS, where a detailed application process (personal statements etc), interviews, volunteer work and some weight given to the leaving cert. This would make people think more about their choices and provide more informed, balanced and interested students. It would certainly go some way to remove "pick blind and cram" CAO applicants.

That wont work. An interview for an 18 year old will just be nonsense, except for the brilliant most people will not have achieved much at that stage - and it will bias towards the Upper Middle Class ( Oi spent my extra year helping the polar bears, roysh). If you make "volunteer work" a criteria everbody will do it. The leaving cert is an academic exam, university has academic exams, whats the problem? There is a clear correlation between leaving cert results and results in University. As you would expect.

2) Reintroduce fees along the lines of the OZ system.

I know this a controversial one, but given the 17% decrease per student spending on 3rd level education in the last few years, more money is needed and quick.

I generally agree with fees, and parental assets should be taken into account.

3) Expand the grant system

To enable socially disadvantaged students greater entry to the 3rd level system. Means tested, of course.

of course. Lets means test including assets.

4) Provide greater access and information programs to those in socially disadvantaged areas/areas where 3rd level attendance is not traditional

This will break the greatest access barrier to those from socially disadvantaged areas.
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All very nice.

5) Increase college standards[/B]

Improve monitoring of undergraduate courses and remove the student numbers game element. Quality over quantity. Seriously penalise repeats and cap results. Irish degrees should be viewed as those of the highest quality, based on academic merit and standards and not on marketing and other false metrics.

fair enough.

6) Remove the numbers game

The current idea of increasing 3rd level attendance to 75% needs to be looked at cautiously instead of seen as a positive goal. Increases should never come at the cost of reducing standards or watering down courses, an enormous problem in UCD at the moment. Increased numbers should be balanced by more places in technical colleges and expanding 3rd level options as opposed to damaging the standards of those options already in place.

it is absurd. only 25% of people should go to university. It should be an elite academy for people with high intelligence in an academic measurable way. If 75% go to university the bottom one third of all undergraduates will be below average intelligence. And those degrees they get? Only worth the job in McDonalds.

The "knowledge economy" is just silliness.

panda100

FionnMatthew wrote: »

It's not a particularly stringent requirement. I should think anybody who really is up to the academic standards of a university, barring anything awful happening to them, should be able to get a 2.1. It's certainly not out of the ballpark.
.

The pass rate for most health science courses (and maybe others that I dont know of) is 50%, so its not as easy for these students to get a 2:1, let alone a pass. There is different standards and regulations depending on what course your doing. The playing field between different courses would be far to uneven to implement this,It would be discrimintory and unfair.


Also,This would be a terrible system for more vocational courses such as medicine, nursing,physio etc. Often those who are less academically gifted end up rising to the top of their fields, as communication and people skills evntually become much more important than your academic performance. However, this sort of fee's system would lead to decent doctors,nurses dropping out in early years and leaving only rich kids and super brainbox's to become our future psychiatrists, paediatricans, gp's etc. This would be a maasive detriment to the whole of society.

p.s hope you recovered from the wedding