WIT University Status - "Its a big 'no'"

Sully

Christ almighty somebody fire that tool in the Department of Education. Constantly changing his mind. "Decession due shortly" "Decession due in weeks" "Decession due at the end of the year" "Decession will be subject to another review". For god sake Batt, get your act together and make up your bloody mind. How many reports need to be published and how much more time and tax payers money needs to be wasted making a decession?

Get bloody on with it!

The Minister for Education says a decision on WIT's university application will be be the subject of another
review.

It's three years since WIT first made the application to become a university.

A specially commisioned report published a year ago by Doctor Jim Port said WIT had an academic case for an upgrade but said government policy on the issue had to be clearer.

The government had indicated that a decision might be made by the end of last year, but
speaking in Kilkenny this morning, Minister Batt O'Keefe says the decision will now be folded into
a broader review of third level education due at the end of the year.

Source: http://www.wlrfm.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=1&Itemid=72

Professey Chin

Sully wrote: »

Christ almighty somebody fire that tool in the Department of Education. Constantly changing his mind. "Decession due shortly" "Decession due in weeks" "Decession due at the end of the year" "Decession will be subject to another review". For god sake Batt, get your act together and make up your bloody mind. How many reports need to be published and how much more time and tax payers money needs to be wasted making a decession?

Get bloody on with it!



Source: http://www.wlrfm.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=1&Itemid=72

He'll keep using reports,reviews and anything else to delay it so he doesn't have to make a decision. Coward

Bards

Ultimate Chin wrote: »

He'll keep using reports,reviews and anything else to delay it so he doesn't have to make a decision. Coward

He's learning from the other Minister for reports Micheal Martin, he had over 100 commissioned during his spell in Dept of Health, and they're all sitting on a shelf somewhere gathering dust.

This is the biggest waste of money scandle which our media never 'report' on

merlante

Bards wrote: »

He's learning from the other Minister for reports Micheal Martin, he had over 100 commissioned during his spell in Dept of Health, and they're all sitting on a shelf somewhere gathering dust.

This is the biggest waste of money scandle which our media never 'report' on

The great hope of the Port report was that it was conducted by an expert that was considered neutral by all sides. Any new report would probably be conducted by government cronies or vested interests, such as Danny O'Hare of the unofficial "more world class universities for Ireland" lobby, with the expected/desired result. It's a pity that Port will effectively be kicked into touch by any new review. I think it's pretty clear that his report was as positive for the WIT case as was possible given the kafkaesque remit (evaluate WIT for upgrade without opposing government policy, which is that there should be no more universities).

dayshah

There is a new report out today on 3rd level.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/0819/1224277151590.html

It was put together by Colin Hunt, who is from Waterford.

One recommendation reported in the Irish Times is that "that 14 institutes of technology could be redesignated as technology universities, provided strict quality assurances were provided;"

I don't like the sound of this. 12 years ago WRTC got IT status to differentiate us from the lesser RTCs. Then due to pressure from Cork RTC a new minister for education, Micheal Martin (from Cork) made all the RTCs into ITs, totally eliminating the benefit for Waterford.

It looks like the same could happen again. Personally I don't care so much about if WIT is called a university, I just think that it (and DIT) should have a separate classification to the other ITs to differentiate ourselves. WIT is way above all the others (except DIT which is also very good, prob better than WIT). Calling all the ITs technological universities is a pure sop to the other ITs and is a slap in the face for all the hard work that has been done in Waterford.

mike65

Oh dear here we go again. Grade inflation for institutions.

Colin Hunt? Rings an unfortunate bell.

red_diesel

dayshah wrote: »

WIT is way above all the others (except DIT which is also very good, prob better than WIT). Calling all the ITs technological universities is a pure sop to the other ITs and is a slap in the face for all the hard work that has been done in Waterford.

As somebody who has attended WIT and one other IT I can tell you your assumption that WIT is "way above all others" is total fluff.

dayshah

red_diesel wrote: »

As somebody who has attended WIT and one other IT I can tell you your assumption that WIT is "way above all others" is total fluff.

Which other IT and which subject? From my personal experience WIT competes well with UCC in Business.

Shatner

There are too many universities on this island as it is. Too much duplication of courses too.

I'd be all in favour of new investment into WIT or into the SE in general, but calls for a university there smacks of parish pump politics.

coolperson05

Shatner wrote: »

There are too many universities on this island as it is. Too much duplication of courses too.

I'd be all in favour of new investment into WIT or into the SE in general, but calls for a university there smacks of parish pump politics.

Totally agree. I think, and I hope that WIT will market itself in the real IT courses. Practicals such as Computers, engineering, architecture, etc. They should specialise and not try compete. I do think there should be a distinction between it (and possibly DIT and CIT) against the other IT's, Maybe a regional branding such as South East Technical Institute and similar for DIT and CIT. WIT does practical well, why change that?

red_diesel

dayshah wrote: »

Which other IT and which subject? From my personal experience WIT competes well with UCC in Business.

Carlow IT, a really good college with dedicated lecturers.
I found when I went to WIT the emphasis was on pumping out graduates, not really the quality of the graduate. I know people who graduated with me with 2.1 degrees from a software development course who could not write a line of code!!

merlante

Shatner wrote: »

There are too many universities on this island as it is. Too much duplication of courses too.

Maybe, maybe not. Finland has a lot more universities and they have the best education system in the world.

Shatner wrote: »

I'd be all in favour of new investment into WIT or into the SE in general, but calls for a university there smacks of parish pump politics.

Statements about 'too many universities' without providing any rationale or research/report citation, and automatically labeling calls for a WIT upgrade 'parish pump politics' is a convenient and parochial view of its own.

The reality is, there is already an IoT there. Upgrading it would not only add a university it would subtract an IoT. And after that, if rationalisation is the order of the day, I'd take a look at the Dublin region, with DCU, NUIM, TCD, UCD and god knows how many IoTs in situ, and not in the south east, where there is no university, and only two IoTs.

dlofnep

dayshah wrote: »

Which other IT and which subject? From my personal experience WIT competes well with UCC in Business.

I found that the IT lecturers here varied greatly. Some were enthusiastic and knew their stuff, others were put as lecturers for subjects that they clearly had no prior experience with. It happened on a number of occasions where lecturers were downloading subject matter from the internet, and were clearly unable to convey it to the class because they themselves didn't understand it.

Major upskilling is needed in WIT before it should become a university. Not only that, but students should have a fair choice of subjects. In 3rd and 4th year - our choices were severely cut, limiting further study in areas that were crucial to our course.

I would love to see WIT as a university, but only when it deserves it. Right now, that is not the case.

Yes Boss

merlante wrote: »

Maybe, maybe not. Finland has a lot more universities and they have the best education system in the world.



Statements about 'too many universities' without providing any rationale or research/report citation, and automatically labeling calls for a WIT upgrade 'parish pump politics' is a convenient and parochial view of its own.

The reality is, there is already an IoT there. Upgrading it would not only add a university it would subtract an IoT. And after that, if rationalisation is the order of the day, I'd take a look at the Dublin region, with DCU, NUIM, TCD, UCD and god knows how many IoTs in situ, and not in the south east, where there is no university, and only two IoTs.

It is not really about the name. The problem is, is that Universities get double the money that ITs get for teaching the same number of students. I would be happy for WIT to stay an IT and market itself like MIT with twice the revenue!!

dayshah

red_diesel wrote: »

Carlow IT, a really good college with dedicated lecturers.
I found when I went to WIT the emphasis was on pumping out graduates, not really the quality of the graduate. I know people who graduated with me with 2.1 degrees from a software development course who could not write a line of code!!

Fair enough. You can be unlucky with some lecturers in one place or lucky in another. But Carlow IT only offers 21 degree courses, WIT almost double that.

http://www2.cao.ie/points/lvl8_09.pdf

So it depends how you rank a place. Teaching ability is the most obvious for undergraduate courses. Then a broad range of subjects is important, decent facilities (ie computers that work, decent library, decent canteen), and then if you want to do a masters or PhD research ability of staff.

@Dlofnep

I largely agree with you. I think WIT is good for undergraduate degrees (and better than UCC for Business/Commerce) but when you move up to Masters or PhD level, in my subject area, they just don't make the grade. (In fairness though, I know from experience that UCC and NUIG turn out some fairly sub-standard PhD theses in some subjects.)

sparkling sea

dlofnep wrote: »

I found that the IT lecturers here varied greatly. Some were enthusiastic and knew their stuff, others were put as lecturers for subjects that they clearly had no prior experience with. It happened on a number of occasions where lecturers were downloading subject matter from the internet, and were clearly unable to convey it to the class because they themselves didn't understand it.

Major upskilling is needed in WIT before it should become a university. Not only that, but students should have a fair choice of subjects. In 3rd and 4th year - our choices were severely cut, limiting further study in areas that were crucial to our course.

I would love to see WIT as a university, but only when it deserves it. Right now, that is not the case.

Couldn't agree more.

WIT is not of university status and if you are unfortunate enough to be located in the College Street campus your ability to access facilities is really hampered. Further if you think that it is of University status you are doing Waterford and future students to WIT a total disservice, the message we should be learning and sending out now is you get what you work for but you have to reach a high standard. If WIT was privately run it would be closed in my opinion. That doesn't mean that everywhere else if brillant though.

When the Sunday Times does its yearly listenings it doesn't visit College street campus and so a fair assesssment of WIT cannot be gained.

There is a problem with the standard and ability of some lecturers to lecture. Although very much in the minority some lecturers do not appear to realise that an hour long lecture means you have to stay for more then 10 minutes I had one lecturer who on turned up th 6th week in to our module.
Modules for courses are chopped and changed depending on budget rather then relevance to your course.

Worst of all is the mixing of years, when I did my course - which I have only recently finished, 2nd and 3rd years were given classes together - we had to do a presentation and marks were awarded, however because the 2nd years kicked up about having less experience they were awarded an extra 15%, this was just a random figure decided on by the lecturer. This happened with 3 of my modules, now how can this be the practice of a University.

Every business has a standard it must attain and this standard gets higher and higher all of the time however WIT remains consistant in its ability not to change I studied accounting in the late 1990's and whent back to college again in 2006. There are new buildings, etc but you will see next week the timetables will be all over the place for a month. Classrooms will be changed over and over. And you might not ever have a lecture for some of your modules and if this happens they will just stick you in with some module that will never be relevant to your course - you might even hate it but its all that will be available

But it is great craic

Shatner

merlante wrote: »

Maybe, maybe not. Finland has a lot more universities and they have the best education system in the world.



Statements about 'too many universities' without providing any rationale or research/report citation, and automatically labeling calls for a WIT upgrade 'parish pump politics' is a convenient and parochial view of its own.

The reality is, there is already an IoT there. Upgrading it would not only add a university it would subtract an IoT. And after that, if rationalisation is the order of the day, I'd take a look at the Dublin region, with DCU, NUIM, TCD, UCD and god knows how many IoTs in situ, and not in the south east, where there is no university, and only two IoTs.

I think there is a pretty strong rationale here:

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/merge-ucd-with-trinity-to-create-a-top10-uni-2029318.html

Better to have quality than quantity.

I agree with you that there are too many unis/institutes in Dublin.

Waterford is not that far from Cork. No need for another university in the South.

dlofnep

Shatner wrote: »

Waterford is not that far from Cork. No need for another university in the South.

It's an hour and a half commute, or longer in poor traffic. Waterford isn't in the south, it's in the south-east. The commute to Cork is just too long, and too expensive for most people. It forces students to move to Cork. If that's the case, they may aswell move to Dublin.

Shatner

dlofnep wrote: »

It's an hour and a half commute, or longer in poor traffic. Waterford isn't in the south, it's in the south-east. The commute to Cork is just too long, and too expensive for most people. It forces students to move to Cork. If that's the case, they may aswell move to Dublin.

Let's build a university in Tralee so as well.

dayshah

Shatner wrote: »

Let's build a university in Tralee so as well.

No, but I'd be open to an Irish language one in Dingle.

The point is, its more expensive to be a university student from Waterford than Limerick or Galway as you have no option of staying at home. You have to pay thousands in rent.

Tralee doesn't have the population Waterford does. I reckon 40 min drive is the farthest people will commute to college. How many people live 40min around Tralee?

Shatner

dayshah wrote: »

No, but I'd be open to an Irish language one in Dingle.

The point is, its more expensive to be a university student from Waterford than Limerick or Galway as you have no option of staying at home. You have to pay thousands in rent.

Tralee doesn't have the population Waterford does. I reckon 40 min drive is the farthest people will commute to college. How many people live 40min around Tralee?

If your argument is around population size, then we need more universities in Dublin.

dayshah

Shatner wrote: »

If your argument is around population size, then we need more universities in Dublin.

Why? You can expand existing universities.

They have
UCD
TCD
DCU
Maynooth
all within 40 min, as well as specialised colleges for teaching, art etc.

Population is the main reason for why we should aim to have a university, but at present I think its justified to distinguish WIT from the rest.

BlaasForRafa

Shatner wrote: »

If your argument is around population size, then we need more universities in Dublin.

Whenever there is a university thread here theres usually at least one troll (usually from Cork) shows up to derail the thread and turn it into a slanging match.

Shatner

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Whenever there is a university thread here theres usually at least one troll (usually from Cork) shows up to derail the thread and turn it into a slanging match.

How did I turn it in to a slagging match?

I raised the issue that there already too many universities in the 26 counties (we should probably be aiming for four).

Others raised the issue that Waterford is a good distance from Cork/Dublin. I raised the issue that you could say the same about Tralee.

Someone then said that Waterford is bigger than tralee so it deserves a university, I made the point that if it's all about population size, then we should only have unis in Dublin.

Where was I trolling? I believe all of this. And it didn't become a slagging match till you joined the party sunshine.

I get it. Waterford wants a university. There is no benefit to the country in creating another university offering duplicate degrees. I proposed that WIT could be given funding to become a centre of excellence in a niche area (IT, Life Sciences, Engineering etc.). That makes sense.

You just don't want to have to move to Dublin to study Arts when you finish your leaving cert. That's not a convincing argument for me, I'm sorry.

west101

gscully wrote: »

Gloating? Hardly!

As I said in another thread about parking in Lismore Park, the college doesn't deserve Uni status if it cannot put the needs of it's students and faculty staff first. While they are off trying to find somewhere to park, classes are carrying on without them...or classes are not happening because the lecturers are off trying to park somewhere. The college has so far done nothing to address this issue, and are set to add to the problem by building on top of the small car-park at the back of the college - leading to a further shortage. If the college does not put the needs of the students first, then it simply does not deserve Uni status.

You do realise that these new buildings are being built on green areas in the carpark and the carpark has being extended to 100 plus spaces.

Also I think building new buildings for the engineering and architecture students and staff are putting their needs first by moving them out of the cold, damp and stuffy 70s era defunct buildings and prefabs that are currently in place.

hardybuck

dayshah wrote: »

I largely agree with you. I think WIT is good for undergraduate degrees (and better than UCC for Business/Commerce)

I feel that while WIT have a good business course, it is not on a par with Commerce in UCC, from experience as both a student and as an employer. The UCC reputation still opens up a few more doors, and will give you access to a strong Alumni network.

WIT's real competition now lies with the likes of DIT. DCU would be a good model for WIT to follow. DCU are a very young institution, but are expanding rapidly and rising fast in world rankings. Comparing them to UCC, UCD and Trinity is a useless exercise.

BlaasForRafa

Shatner wrote: »

How did I turn it in to a slagging match?

I raised the issue that there already too many universities in the 26 counties (we should probably be aiming for four).

Others raised the issue that Waterford is a good distance from Cork/Dublin. I raised the issue that you could say the same about Tralee.

Someone then said that Waterford is bigger than tralee so it deserves a university, I made the point that if it's all about population size, then we should only have unis in Dublin.

Where was I trolling? I believe all of this. And it didn't become a slagging match till you joined the party sunshine.

I get it. Waterford wants a university. There is no benefit to the country in creating another university offering duplicate degrees. I proposed that WIT could be given funding to become a centre of excellence in a niche area (IT, Life Sciences, Engineering etc.). That makes sense.

You just don't want to have to move to Dublin to study Arts when you finish your leaving cert. That's not a convincing argument for me, I'm sorry.

I'm long graduated from college "sunshine", I'm an actual productive member of society. It the next generation of students and the welfare of the South-east that I care about. There is a lower standard of living in Waterford compared to the other cities because of the lack of a university. Waterford has lost out on high value industries because they go where the unis are.

One has to wonder what your ulterior motive is on this thread.

Shatner

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

I'm long graduated from college "sunshine", I'm an actual productive member of society. It the next generation of students and the welfare of the South-east that I care about. There is a lower standard of living in Waterford compared to the other cities because of the lack of a university. Waterford has lost out on high value industries because they go where the unis are.

One has to wonder what your ulterior motive is on this thread.

No ulterior motive. I just don't think the country can financially cope with the creation of new universities for purely political reasons.

I don't see why the creation of a well-funded world class research centre in Biotech, for example, would not draw the high value industries you talk about and create wealth in the region.

I don't think that another university churning out more degrees in archaeology or political science or media studies (not that these are not valuable courses of study, it's just that there are already plenty of places to do them) would benefit the country or your region.

dayshah

hardybuck wrote: »

I feel that while WIT have a good business course, it is not on a par with Commerce in UCC, from experience as both a student and as an employer. The UCC reputation still opens up a few more doors, and will give you access to a strong Alumni network.

UCC definitely has a better reputation.

I think we have to distinguish between the quality of the course and quality of students. UCC Commerce does get better students than WIT, so their graduates on average should be better, even if their course isn't. It would be interesting to say match students who get 400 LC points, and see how they both turn out after 4 years, who can do more. Back in my day (I don't know if it changed) WIT taught from September to end April, UCC just Oct to end March. So we had 2 months a year extra lectures (and we had a busier week too). 2months*4 years=8years, almost an entire academic year extra. My experience was when you matched 2 students of equal ability the WIT people did everything UCC people did, plus they could type, use Excel, organise their time properly, make websites, motivate themselves etc. etc.

UCC does have better alumni.

I agree DCU is probably the best model to follow for WIT.

dlofnep

Shatner wrote: »

Let's build a university in Tralee so as well.

Population of Tralee is 20k, population of Waterford is 50k. That's not including the surrounding counties like Wexford & Kilkenny which have students that can travel to Waterford in 30-40 minutes.

There is less demand for a university in Tralee, and much more of a demand for one in Waterford. Your logic is abysmal.