Why should our ambulance drivers be paid more than hospital consultants in Finland.

ronbyrne2005

graduate wrote: »

Where did this quote come from? Cite your source. Anyone can find someone person to say anything.



Exactly. People seem to forget that the republic of Ireland has less than 0.5% of the population of the OECD, you wouldn't expect any universities to be in the top 1% yet there are.

Even leaving aside TCD which has some historical advantages, UCD is similar in the Times ranking to Emory, Purdue and Georgia Tech in the US. Do you imagine for one moment that UCD has anywhere near the budget of these places or that its staff are better paid than in these places?

In 2006, the average tenured Yale professor earned $151,152, an increase of 3.8 percent over the previous year

In Ireland someone with the prestige/qualifications of a Yale professor would be on much more than 100keuro a year. They'd want 300k a year.

ardmacha

In Ireland someone with the prestige/qualifications of a Yale professor would be on much more than 100keuro a year. They'd want 300k a year

Quite right. Anyone would need a salary premium to choose to work in an underfunded Irish university.

Diarmuid

tallaght01 wrote: »

There's stacks of parameters. But Ireland didn't submit full data for the last few reports, whih skewered things a lot.

Why don't they submit the full data?

The cynic in me would say that it's because it would drive their standing lower in the tables but I don't know.

Diarmuid

tallaght01 wrote: »

TCD is ranked 43rd in the world, and UCD is in the 80s. That puts them both in the top 1% of unis worldwide. Both are ranked higher than, say, Georgetown uni, if I remember correctly.

Can you link to this ranking? (not that I don't believe you, I would just like to know)

I would like to see where the Irish universities in general stand among our peers (ie OECD). Anyone have this data? Google failed me

Diarmuid

ardmacha wrote: »

Quite right. Anyone would need a salary premium to choose to work in an underfunded Irish university.

Is there not something fundamental wrong where the universities in general are underfunded compared to their peers, but the salaries in those universities are far above (as claimed above) the salaries of their peers?

dogbert27

Well it would be great then if everybody graduated from TCD and UCD but a majority of graduates come out of
Tralee Institute of Technology,
Limerick Institute of Technology,
Galway Institute of Technology,
Sligo Institute of Technology,
Letterkenny Institute of Technology,
Dundalk Institute of Technology,
Athlone Institute of Technology,
Dun Laoghaire Institute of Technology,
Blanchardstown Institute of Technology,
Tallaght Institute of Technology,
Waterford Institute of Technology,
Cork Institute of Technology along with various others.

But then again Dublin universities represent Ireland's education system don't they. :rolleyes:

dogbert27

Diarmuid:

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2009/results

avalon68

Diarmuid wrote: »

Is there not something fundamental wrong where the universities in general are underfunded compared to their peers, but the salaries in those universities are far above (as claimed above) the salaries of their peers?

Its very wrong. If I were to begin a postdoc in the uk I would start on 25 - 27k (and that would be in London)....here I would start on 36-40k. Even aside from salary issues, there is so much nepotism and so much money wasted in universities here (eg hiring post docs who have not completed there PhD's and paying them towards the higher end of the post doc scale) that they shouldnt get more money until they sort themselves out. There just seems to be very little accountability within the current system, and that is never a recipe for success.

ardmacha

If I were to begin a postdoc in the uk I would start on 25 - 27k (and that would be in London)....here I would start on 36-40k

So you have a PhD and you get less than a prison officer, this may not be the biggest injustice in PS pay.

Even aside from salary issues, there is so much nepotism and so much money wasted in universities here

There is bad management in universities. Fix that by all means.
Do not further underfund a sector that gets less than other places already based on a trite analysis of the situation.

avalon68

ardmacha wrote: »

There is bad management in universities. Fix that by all means.
Do not further underfund a sector that gets less than other places already.

If the current situation with our health service has taught us anything it should be that pouring money into systems that are poorly managed has no long term benefits for anyone - not for the people who work there or the people who avail of the services. The same applies to the university sector - widespread reform is required.

graduate

If the current situation with our health service has taught us anything it should be that pouring money into systems that are poorly managed has no long term benefits for anyone

Money has never been poured into Irish education and there is no proposal to do so.

But the education sector has achieved internationally comparable outputs with slightly less then average inputs. Can health in Ireland say the same? So the system is not perfect (what is), but hardly dysfunctional either. A clear analysis of the strengths and limitations of the system is needed, rather than the notion that "it all needs reform". Especially since half baked so called reform is just an excuse to have more highly paid managers.

The government needs to decide what it wants from universities, lots of graduates of not very demanding courses that aren't too hard to get into or leading edge stuff that might actually be hard. Unfortunately thinking about this is itself hard, because it is complex, which is why neither government nor some of the people on this thread are likely to really address the issue.

thebman

graduate wrote: »

Money has never been poured into Irish education and there is no proposal to do so.

But the education sector has achieved internationally comparable outputs with slightly less then average inputs. Can health in Ireland say the same? So the system is not perfect (what is), but hardly dysfunctional either. A clear analysis of the strengths and limitations of the system is needed, rather than the notion that "it all needs reform". Especially since half baked so called reform is just an excuse to have more highly paid managers.

The government needs to decide what it wants from universities, lots of graduates of not very demanding courses that aren't too hard to get into or leading edge stuff that might actually be hard. Unfortunately thinking about this is itself hard, because it is complex, which is why neither government nor some of the people on this thread are likely to really address the issue.

Well our government want everyone to have a degree to ensure everyone is happy paying for everyones education.

It is ridiculous really, so many people do have degrees that have not put much work into them and that are worthless. We need to raise standards and people need to realise that fees or no fees, nobody is entitled to a degree.

Diarmuid

graduate wrote: »

But the education sector has achieved internationally comparable outputs with slightly less then average inputs.

You keep claiming that but this is far from a fact.

You said:

People seem to forget that the republic of Ireland has less than 0.5% of the population of the OECD, you wouldn't expect any universities to be in the top 1% yet there are.

Yet the UK have 0.8% of the worlds population and 3 of the top 5 universities. This makes our 1 in the top 50 look amateurish. How do you reconcile this?

Clearly the metric you are using is not a very useful metric. That is why I asked if anyone had figures that compare Ireland's universities (not just TCD/UCD) to our peers ie OECD. Anyone?

graduate

You keep claiming that but this is far from a fact.

Measuring educational outcomes is not an exact science. Irish degrees are held in good regard by people applying for postgrads etc abroad and by employers. have you some aggregate evidence that this is not the case?

Yet the UK have 0.8% of the worlds population and 3 of the top 5 universities. This makes our 1 in the top 50 look amateurish. How do you reconcile this?

Britain has very long established universities with world profiles in the likes of Oxford and Cambridge and it also has poor institutions which provide a much worse service than anywhere here. In big countries like the UK or the US there is a wide spectrum of standards, from world class to crap. Ireland has general purpose institutions which provide a good general service to the population. They do not specialise unduly in research, which affects these rankings.

Clearly the metric you are using is not a very useful metric.

Propose a better one.

That is why I asked if anyone had figures that compare Ireland's universities (not just TCD/UCD) to our peers ie OECD. Anyone?

Hard to get a concrete basis for such a comparision.
This might be of interest
http://www.education.ie/servlet/blobservlet/oecd_review_national_policies_education.doc

irish_bob

thebman wrote: »

Well our government want everyone to have a degree to ensure everyone is happy paying for everyones education.

It is ridiculous really, so many people do have degrees that have not put much work into them and that are worthless. We need to raise standards and people need to realise that fees or no fees, nobody is entitled to a degree.

university standards have been sacraficed in the name of yet more equality , we would be better off with a third less 3rd level graduates but with a better prepared graduate entering the workforce , going to college has become a rite of passage

thebman

irish_bob wrote: »

university standards have been sacraficed in the name of yet more equality , we would be better off with a third less 3rd level graduates but with a better prepared graduate entering the workforce , going to college has become a rite of passage

I'm not worried about going to college being a rite of passage but once there people should get screwed if they don't put in the work. Fail them if they deserve it and screw the bell curve.

Godge

graduate wrote: »

Measuring educational outcomes is not an exact science. Irish degrees are held in good regard by people applying for postgrads etc abroad and by employers. have you some aggregate evidence that this is not the case?

Google recently claimed that they could not get the required calibre of graduates from the Irish system and that they had to recruit from abroad. They also said it was putting their investment in Ireland at risk.

97i9y3941

yeah,for international companies its becoming a must have now to have a ability to speak a second language...

thebman

Godge wrote: »

Google recently claimed that they could not get the required calibre of graduates from the Irish system and that they had to recruit from abroad. They also said it was putting their investment in Ireland at risk.

Those are call centre/helpdesk jobs that require an additional language. Doesn't mean anything about the standard of our degrees.

Just means people in Ireland don't know any European languages. If your going to blame that on anything, try mandatory Irish which isn't even been taught properly.

Anyway its much easier to learn English I'd say due to exposure to it in the media everywhere in music/movies etc... and we are isolated on the edge of Europe so its harder to get exposure to foreign languages.

avalon68

thebman wrote: »

Those are call centre/helpdesk jobs that require an additional language. Doesn't mean anything about the standard of our degrees.

Just means people in Ireland don't know any European languages. If your going to blame that on anything, try mandatory Irish which isn't even been taught properly.

Actually I think it says a lot about the quality of our degrees if all the people who study languages in college arent considered competent to use languages by companies such as google.

P. Breathnach

avalon68 wrote: »

Actually I think it says a lot about the quality of our degrees if all the people who study languages in college arent considered competent to use languages by companies such as google.

I suspect that the problem is more that those who qualify in other areas, such as IT, do not also study languages at a moderately high level.

jimmmy

P. Breathnach wrote: »

"study languages at a moderately high level".

Our education system has a lot to answer for, when many ( if not most ) people in the country are not even able to speak foreign languages at all. If you think an elderly French person or German or Italian needed help at a hotel reception in their own language, or in a restaurant, how many Irish people would be able to help ? Not only are our teachers paid considerably more than the European average ( as numerous surveys and reports have shown eg the one in this months Business Plus magazine ) , not only do they get double the summer holidays they do in Germany for example, but at the end of the day most continentals have to speak our languge, ( in general ) we cannot communicate with them in theirs.

97i9y3941

maybe i was misinformed,i heard you dont need college education at times to work in the public sector,just experience in them areas from the private sector, as it would be seen as discrimnation on your educational background?...

thebman

avalon68 wrote: »

Actually I think it says a lot about the quality of our degrees if all the people who study languages in college arent considered competent to use languages by companies such as google.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I suspect that the problem is more that those who qualify in other areas, such as IT, do not also study languages at a moderately high level.

Exactly the problem is someone from another European country with an IT degree will most likely speak English on top of their natural language.

Or are we just ignoring what google do and saying look languages are all that is important to google?

P. Breathnach

jimmmy wrote: »

Our education system has a lot to answer for, when many ( if not most ) people in the country are not even able to speak foreign languages at all. If you think an elderly French person or German or Italian needed help at a hotel reception in their own language, or in a restaurant, how many Irish people would be able to help ? ...

That's pretty standard for English-speaking countries, because English is the language of tourism. Irish hoteliers and restaurateurs do not give a high priority to ability in continental languages in their recruitment policies -- with some exceptions, particularly at the upper end of the tourism market. [Mind you, Polish tourists should have no problem in our hotels and restaurants.]

If you meet foreigners whose only significant exposure to English is what they experienced in second-level education, you generally find that their language skills are not greatly different from that of Irish people trying to use the French or German that they learned in the Leaving Certificate.

When I was a teenager, I went to France on a student exchange. My hosts wanted to know what my third language was. I was briefly flummoxed, until it dawned on me that it was French. After that, they were a bit more impressed with my rather tentative efforts in their language.

jimmmy

P. Breathnach wrote: »

If you meet foreigners whose only significant exposure to English is what they experienced in second-level education, you generally find that their language skills are not greatly different from that of Irish people trying to use the French or German that they learned in the Leaving Certificate.

The problem is most Irish people do not have any german or french of even leaving cert standard. In a quality Irish hotel one I saw nobody able to help a group of elderly continental tourists who were unable to speak much English. Ask a thousand people in the street in Ireland directions in French or German and see how the response differs from asking for directions in English on the continent. This despite the fact our teachers are paid 40% more in Ireland than on the continent.

ardmacha

I once was asked for directions in Italian in a Dublin suburb, after the initial shock I was happy to help. The reality is that English is vastly more dominant than any other language, even if everyone here did speak French it might not help Germans very much. But the attitude of hotels etc stinks.

This despite the fact our teachers are paid 40% more in Ireland than on the continent.

While the question of teachers pay is open to debate, it is also the case that people are influenced by the attitudes in society. Students do not learn maths, or don't take non English classes seriously because these are the attitudes they see around them. Yes teachers should try and overcome this, but just as schools may oppose binge drinking to little effect they cannot fully overcome this.

thebman

The reality is there is no subsitiuite for exposure to a language. Even if we did all get up to fluent French in schools, we don't speak it everyday so we'll soon forget it in favor of something more easily remembered.

If your someone coming from another country speaking another language to Ireland this gives you a real advantage if you can speak English as you'll soon come up to fluent level because you'll have no choice and then you can have your native language.

Simple as that IMO.

jimmmy

Maybe if teachers put in the same hours + only took the same holidays as their continental counterparts that would help as well. And instead of paying our teachers 40% more, if some money saved there was put in to better facilities in schools.

avalon68

thebman wrote: »

Exactly the problem is someone from another European country with an IT degree will most likely speak English on top of their natural language.

Or are we just ignoring what google do and saying look languages are all that is important to google?

Im sure google hire lots of people without IT degress....eg people with law and business degrees. Many degree courses in Ireland offer law with german, law with french, commerce with italian,german, french etc. If I was hiring a person with such a degree I would expect them to be proficient in both commerce and the chosen language. Unfortunately that is not the case. Yes our education system in poorly funded - I agree on this point - BUT- if wages were not so high for teachers and lecturers then more money would be available to improve the system