The knowledge economy myth

thebman

Yet more evidence if any was needed that this is a FF buzzword and that they don't take the economy seriously and want property bubbles and desperately hope that will we see export led growth when other countries recover and hoping that they don't have to do anything. Seems clear to me that there is no plan for the economy or any kind of recovery and the closest thing to one is to try to get a green bubble going building clean technologies and then deal with the economy when we have windmills everywhere (exaggeration).

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/ireland-bottom-of-class-for-technology-1917596.html

RELAND is close to the bottom of the world league when it comes to technology in the classroom.

One in three Irish 15 year olds hasn't used a computer in school, twice the average in the rest of the developed world, according to a 2006 survey.

Another study in the same year put Ireland 19th out of 25 European countries on the use of technology in the classroom.

And nothing has changed since then.

The 2007 National Development Plan envisaged a €252m investment in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in schools in the period to 2013.

The proposed investment was the subject of no less than 17 statements from former education minister Mary Hanafin.

A strategy group was set up to advise on spending priorities, and it reported that an "expansive and strategic investment in ICT in education is an investment in all our futures, and must now become a reality for Ireland".

But darkening economic clouds cast a shadow over the plan. Soon after his appointment in May 2008, Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe was forced to admit that "decisions on the timing and amount of expenditure in this area this year must be made in the overall context of the current budgetary situation".


Disadvantaged

While there has been limited sponsorship from industry and some ICT support for disadvantaged schools from government agencies, most others have relied on parent donations, cake sales, raffles, golf classics and supermarket tokens for even the most basic ICT equipment.

The delay in rolling out a national scheme is worrying educationalists, who say Irish pupils are being left behind in the digital revolution.

A recent report on ICT in schools warned that years of under-investment meant that Ireland has been "leapfrogged" by other countries, and at a time of fierce global competition for hi-tech jobs.

Last week, Mr O'Keeffe finally signalled that money for computers in schools may be on the way at the end of this year -- but only at the expense of the school building program

Being into gaming, I frequent gaming forums and see kids from other countries talking about their programming classes in America and other countries.

Seems sad that Ireland doesn't give a crap about its children and isn't planning for the future in anyway.

csm

knowledge != programming





but you're right in that there has been chronic underinvestment in education, which is criminal if we want to create this knowledge economy. I don't think a lack of computers in schools is particularly worrying though. I'd be more concerned about infrastructure & class sizes

SLUSK

Why bother with programming, when this kind of stuff can be done by code monkeys in India for the fraction of the cost here?

cavedave

The evidence on the usefullness of computers* is fairly ambigious. There is a good article on it here.

But the question of Ireland being a knowledge economy is a good one. You would expect an economy based on knowledge to have book shops of a resonable standard. We don't.

You would expect some public intellectuals that could argue based on this knowledge to try affect policy. With the exception of economics we don't have any. If our economy is to be based on physicists, chemists, computer scientists, biochemists and such you would expect people to be able to recognise one of them.

Britain has many famous scientists (Dawkins, Greenfield Winston etc) who will go on telly and talk about why a partucular policy is good/bad for scientific research. There are also people like Singh and Goldacre who though not famous as scientists still put a knowledge based argument across. In Ireland who do we have to promote the knowledge economy?

*for education

dvpower

cavedave wrote: »

The evidence on the usefullness of computers is fairly ambigious. There is a good article on it here.

Good username:rolleyes:

The evidence on the usefullness of computers is fairly ambigious. There is a good article on it here.

Diarmuid

dvpower wrote: »

Good username:rolleyes:

Ever hear the phrase, "play the ball, not the man"?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Noreen1

I agree that the "Knowledge economy" is a myth perpetrated by FF.

I would like to add that foreign languages are not promoted sufficiently, either. Graduates fluent in a number of Languages is a basic requirement for multinational trade - yet we do not seem to give it anywhere near the priority it requires.

Noreen

Cannibal Ox

The knowledge economy might seem like a myth to some people because it comes from sociological/philosophical/economic theories of post-industrial societies and the information revolution. Because they're theories it's difficult to make any genuine sense of them without a solid example (which is sadly lacking from the discussions). It mightn’t help that the politicians don’t actually know what the **** it is anyway, but that’s not the point. The point is Ireland needs to turn in to a knowledge society.

The gist of the idea (s), as far as I can make out, is sound. You need to shift from manual labour to mental labour. The service industry, and the science sector (industry), need to be the focus of economic (and education) policy. Ireland can't compete with other countries on the basis of its manufacturing might, so it needs to focus on the knowledge of its workforce. It’s competitive advantage.

It doesn't mean that everybody has a PhD, can programme computers, or recite the theory of relativity like we used to recite the rosary. It means we need to use our heads instead of our arms to make money. How? Stop focusing on aspects of farming and manufacturing as one of the driving forces behind the economy, and shift the focus and effort on to service and knowledge/information producing industries.

But, try selling that as a politician. I'm sorry, traditional base of the party, but you're going to have to stop raising and selling cattle. It's no longer useful to the economy. And neither are you. I'm sorry Mr. and Ms. Barely Above Minimum Wage, but we're going to be shutting down factories all over the country and leaving you and your skills back in the 20th century because you're a drain on the economy. You'd bleed votes by the second.

Do any of the politicians know any of the theories around knowledge societies? I doubt it, but I'm sure their advisors, or who ever is pushing it, does. And it is something that needs to happen because Ireland can't compete economically the way it has tried to since its independence. It needs to change its focus, the opportunity is there, but it needs a *lot* of political will and a *lot* of money. Neither of which are in plentiful of supply at the moment.

Permabear

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murphaph

SLUSK wrote: »

Why bother with programming, when this kind of stuff can be done by code monkeys in India for the fraction of the cost here?

Someone needs to be sufficiently skilled in writing code to write the specifications (or higher level code) for said code monkeys though.

In any case, I'd say most programming isn't concerned with grand projects that can be sliced up into modules and off-shored to India for coding. A lot of firms need programmers on site.

leninbenjamin

SLUSK wrote: »

Why bother with programming, when this kind of stuff can be done by code monkeys in India for the fraction of the cost here?

developing a programme is 10% design, 20% development and 70% maintenance (the stats are wrong but it's something along those lines). You can outsource the dev if you want, but you need competent people to maintain a large system in house.

SLUSK

leninbenjamin wrote: »

developing a programme is 10% design, 20% development and 70% maintenance (the stats are wrong but it's something along those lines). You can outsource the dev if you want, but you need competent people to maintain a large system in house.

I thought you wouldn't have to deal with all this crap when everyone starts using "cloud computing".

Amhran Nua

The entire concept of a knowledge economy is flawed, imho. It depends on third world countries respecting your IP, so the "brains" in the west provide the schematics for the "backs" in the east. Its flawed on another level as well, which is that people in third world countries are quite capable of understanding and building on work done here, and therefore replacing the brains with their own brains, on top of controlling the industrial production capabilities. The largest economies on earth are massive exporters for a reason, and thats where we need to focus our energies.

leninbenjamin

SLUSK wrote: »

I thought you wouldn't have to deal with all this crap when everyone starts using "cloud computing".

'cloud computing' is nothing new. It's just being pushed a lot more at SMEs and home-users now. Many large corporations have had their own in-house equivalent of 'cloud computing' for years.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

The entire concept of a knowledge economy is flawed, imho. It depends on third world countries respecting your IP, so the "brains" in the west provide the schematics for the "backs" in the east. Its flawed on another level as well, which is that people in third world countries are quite capable of understanding and building on work done here, and therefore replacing the brains with their own brains, on top of controlling the industrial production capabilities. The largest economies on earth are massive exporters for a reason, and thats where we need to focus our energies.

you're placing too much importance on the IP. The product is never just the IP itself, it's also the services and after-market care of the seller towards an implementation of said IP.

toiletduck

csm wrote: »

knowledge != programming

Quite true, however programming does exercise a persons problem solving skills and force them to really analyse a problem in a way, that outside of Applied Maths, doesn't seem to be evident in any secondary school courses/subjects.

book smarts

When Ireland becomes poor enough kids will start teaching themselves the way Indian kids do. Thanks to the Internet lots of info is out here. I'm sick of people blaming "education" or the "government". Smart people largely teach themselves, even in college. Maybe if kids weren't so fcking lazy these days. Also parents have a lot to answer for.

dvpower

leninbenjamin wrote: »

'cloud computing' is nothing new. It's just being pushed a lot more at SMEs and home-users now. Many large corporations have had their own in-house equivalent of 'cloud computing' for years.

Servers?

Amhran Nua

leninbenjamin wrote: »

you're placing too much importance on the IP. The product is never just the IP itself, it's also the services and after-market care of the seller towards an implementation of said IP.

That only applies in certain business types, and as Dell has demonstrated, you can outsource that quite ably. The entire concept of a knowledge economy rests utterly on respect for IP. Which countries like China don't have.

hobochris

Amhran Nua wrote: »

That only applies in certain business types, and as Dell has demonstrated, you can outsource that quite ably. The entire concept of a knowledge economy rests utterly on respect for IP. Which countries like China don't have.

What Dell demonstrated is that they can get people to to work on a factory floor assembling computers from ready built parts(Which is in essence like putting together Lego blocks, no Computer science degree required!) cheaper in Poland.

AlekSmart

We are indeed trying to peddle the world the myth that Ireland is a "knowledge economy," but it just isn't.

A big +1 on that book smarts.

If any potential employer of products of our Knowledge Economy wants to get a sneak preview then all they need do is present themselves to the Belfield Flyover any Wednesday or Thursday evenin.

At some point in the recent past the quest for knowledge became subsumed into the quest for "The Craic".
This notion of "The Craic" allows for all manner of anti-social,aggressive,incapable nonsense to be excused especially when its inflicted on the greater public by a gang of "Lads" (Non Gender Specific).

We collectively need to wise up PDQ before the more civilized Europeans decide to ditch us as a lost cause and move on to supporting book smart`s "Indians".

I have lost count of the number of times in the last month I have watched small groups of European visitors being exposed to imbicilic savage carry-on by quite obviously disturbed yahoo`s all excited at the prospect of more cheap-gargle in some City Centre dive.

I note yesterdays suggestion by IBEC for a compulsory Gap-Year between 2nd and 3rd Level during which the Yoof could do "some sort" of course to prepare them for University life....really does say a lot about our entire education system that it should come to this ???

hobochris

AlekSmart wrote: »

I note yesterdays suggestion by IBEC for a compulsory Gap-Year between 2nd and 3rd Level during which the Yoof could do "some sort" of course to prepare them for University life....really does say a lot about our entire education system that it should come to this ???

1 year mandatory military service maybe? as they do in Italy.. Instill discipline into those that require it.

leninbenjamin

dvpower wrote: »

Servers?

spot on

Amhran Nua wrote: »

That only applies in certain business types, and as Dell has demonstrated, you can outsource that quite ably. The entire concept of a knowledge economy rests utterly on respect for IP. Which countries like China don't have.

what are you talking about? Dell are manufacturers and nothing to do with the 'knowledge economy'.

cavedave

Amhran Nua

The entire concept of a knowledge economy rests utterly on respect for IP. Which countries like China don't have.

Not necessarily. there are many good descriptions of why intellectual property slows down innovation. Here is a book on that. Sex Science and profits also coherantly argues against IP, except for pharmaceuticals.

Probably not the place for a full on IP argument. But put it this way Cannabis producers have no IP. they have no government funding. the stuff has still gotten much stronger and innovated in other ways over the last few decades.

Amhran Nua

hobochris wrote: »

What Dell demonstrated is that they can get people to to work on a factory floor assembling computers from ready built parts(Which is in essence like putting together Lego blocks, no Computer science degree required!) cheaper in Poland.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

what are you talking about? Dell are manufacturers and nothing to do with the 'knowledge economy'.

Sorry just to clarify I was referring to their post production services, the infamous Indian call centre.

cavedave wrote: »

Not necessarily. there are many good descriptions of why intellectual property slows down innovation. Here is a book on that.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I am saying that basing an entire economy on respect for IP is not a good idea.

MysticalRain

Someone on Boards put it very well in a previous thread... the government's promotion of the "Knowledge Economy" is just a way to make us feel better about losing our manufacturing jobs. It takes some brass balls for our politicians to talk about a knowledge economy given the state of our education system and our third world broadband infrastructure.

#15

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I think there is a place for Irish in the school system.
Language study is never useless.
However, the emphasis put on Irish is too large IMO.

I am required, as a primary teacher, to spend more time teaching Irish than Maths.

For primary teachers who are unlucky enough to work in religious schools (where religious instruction, rather than education, is required) they must spend more time giving religious instruction than teaching science.

If that is not an argument for doing away with religious instruction in schools, I don't know what is.

I can't link anything here, but I can tell you that I am quoting from the Irish primary curriculum.

The second language in a school (which is usually Irish) is typically allocated 3 hours and 30 mins per week, as opposed to 3 hours for Mathematics.

SESE is given 3 hours - 1 hour each going to History, Geography and Science.

In schools with a religious ethos (ie most of them), instruction is generally 2 hours and 30 mins per week.

It is infuriating, it really is. And thats before considering the lack of computers and technology in classrooms.

Knowledge economy my ass!

jmayo

thebman wrote: »

Yet more evidence if any was needed that this is a FF buzzword and that they don't take the economy seriously and want property bubbles and desperately hope that will we see export led growth when other countries recover and hoping that they don't have to do anything. Seems clear to me that there is no plan for the economy or any kind of recovery and the closest thing to one is to try to get a green bubble going building clean technologies and then deal with the economy when we have windmills everywhere (exaggeration).

Being into gaming, I frequent gaming forums and see kids from other countries talking about their programming classes in America and other countries.

Seems sad that Ireland doesn't give a crap about its children and isn't planning for the future in anyway.

It is has been one of my bug bears for a long time, actually from way back circa 1999/200 when every Tom, Dick and Mary was being converted to IT related skills and the then government were running off telling everyone how educated we were and how we were so far ahead.
It was bullsh**, and if you wanted to get good smart people, and even more importantly hard workers who had an interest and cared, you had to import them, because even at that stage loads of our supposed smart ones were actually the product of a half ars** conversion course somewhere.
Would you give any credence at the moment to someone with an IT qualification from Fás ?

Smart economy was a buzz word the likes of coughlan heard at some ff think in, and together with "finality" and "going forward" are the only ones she remembers. :rolleyes:

As for that sanctimonious eejit ryan and his high speed broadband for all myth. It is a bloody mobile network broadband he is offering.

And don't get us started on the claptrap we will become windmill manufacturing supremos. The countries that will do that are the ones with a good manufacturing industrial history and base.

Oh and this last point also applies to the new cuckoos on the block, amhrain nua, who appear to have adopted the cast off green party policies. :rolleyes:

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

#15

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I think it should be possible to study both Irish and a foreign language, even at primary level.
Our school is part of a pilot project on foreign languages. The older classes learn French every week and they love it. Only a few schools around the country are involved though.


One boy in my class is 8 years old and he can speak 7 languages, its amazing!

The early years are the best time for learning languages, we should be throwing our kids into langauges at an early age. They love learning new words, the great thing about teaching language to young children is that they don't see it as a chore. Compare that with teenagers starting a language in secondary......!

So, basically you are saying that Irish gets three and a half hours per week, while religion gets two and a half hours per week, for a combined total of six hours. In other words, the equivalent of a complete school day each week is spent on these two subjects alone.

Where is An Bord Snip when you need them?!

Exactly. A combined 6 hours is spent on Irish and religion in catholic schools.
I cannot comment on religious requirements in other schools.

Maths and science comes to 4 hours per week.

Religious instruction does not fall under curriculum guidelines, but Irish, Maths and Science do.

If I do not allocate more time to Irish than Maths or Science, I would be getting a rather poor report from my inspector/s.




Edit: I found a link to the Introduction to the Primary Curriculum. The time allocation is dealt with on page 79 of the PDF (it is actually page 70 of the book).

http://www.ncca.ie/uploadedfiles/Curriculum/Intro_Eng.pdf


If anyone is interested in the primary curriculum of each subject, just go the ncca website. They are not PDF, the text is actually on the site itself.

Peanut

Amhran Nua wrote: »

...
I'm not disagreeing with you, I am saying that basing an entire economy on respect for IP is not a good idea.

I don't think the IP aspect is that important when talking about developing a tech. sector. In the software industry at least, the focus has moved away from selling packaged products, to providing a service which may be delivered over the web for example.

In terms of other countries copying ideas and services - that's a risk in any sector, but we have a huge advantage in Ireland due to native english speakers and a reasonably good infrastructure.

I'm living in Istanbul at the moment, and the two most popular training courses advertised on the street here are for IT and English.

The trouble I see in Ireland is that there is little hunger from people to advance themselves. There seems to be an attitude that the Government will take care of it, and sure if they don't we can bitch about them a bit more.
Whereas in other countries, these guys are going out and doing something about their situation, instead of hanging around waiting for someone else to fix it.

Perhaps that's one argument for a smaller, less intrusive Government.
We have got used to the idea of deferring responsibilty of running the country to our elected representatives - now when they can't deliver the goods, we don't know where to turn to.

As mentioned in previous posts, the drink culture and compulsory Irish in secondary don't exactly help much either.