The New Generation Leaving Ireland

Welease

Welease wrote: »

I have heard that one senior foreign IT figure believed that about 2/3's of maths teachers in Ireland were not qualified to teach the subject.. No opinion myself, but it seems to be a widely held belief amongst some people.

Well my 6th year maths teacher was none other than a Kerry GAA player who got the position for the simple reason of who he was. He was qualified for metalwork but not leaving cert maths!

K-9

kuntboy wrote: »

What an attitude. Irish people are lazy as sin and just want to get down the pub to slag off the "nerds" that countries like Israel and Taiwan are full of.

thebman wrote: »

I believe it just being poorly taught here and those people will just end up dropping out.

Hell even just basic maths used in first year programming caused over half our class to drop out in the first month when I was in college.

Very few people seem to have an aptituide for maths/science in this country and the reasons for this need to be investigated.

Probably part of it, but the money that was being made in Construction, Architecture, Estate Agency, Accountancy etc. meant they were the popular choices. It'll take 2/3 years for that to clear and maybe 3/4 years to see more Science and Maths graduates.

Amhran Nua

The worst effect of the recession will be and is the loss of the young people, the future of the country, and all the potential they represent.

MysticalRain wrote: »

I do believe that Ireland should be copying the lead of other countries like Taiwan and Israel by moving up the value chain and focusing on innovation instead of just providing cheap labor to foreign companies.

Exactly right, unless we reduce wages to the lowest level within the EU (completely impossible as well as ruinous for the economy) we need to compete on more than wages. Infrastructure, rents, energy costs, broadband connectivity, all of these can be addressed to provide a more attractive environment for business.

Welease wrote: »

- Are the Irish innovative? I worked abroad for 20 years and only moved back to Ireland in 2007.. Like the poster on a previous thread who worked in NZ, I have been shocked and dismayed by the attitude of the average Irish workers I have come across since my return.. Innovation is the last thing they are capable of doing in a form that could sustain this country.. Finding new ways of whining and begrudging everything is about as innovative as they get. Sounds harsh, but I work with a lot of Israeli's and their attitude is 1000x more positive and innovative than ours. Simply put.. our Innovative strategies are about as hollow as the governments broadband stragegy.. all talk and very little substance.

I'd strongly disagree with this. There are plenty of innovative ideas in Ireland and from Irish people, from blue sky to practical, but the funding just isn't there, and hasn't been there for a long time.

Local authority enterprise boards provide minimal funding, and even then you need to have the money spent before you get refunded on the receipts. Enterprise Ireland focuses on successful businesses which want to expand with high minimum criteria to qualify for assistance (which you don't need by that stage), and there are few enough of those. Venture capital isn't something you find a lot of in Ireland, angel investors are a US thing. The banks are the worst joke of all - during the boom you could only get funding for property related investments, afterwards they aren't lending at all.

The education is there, the innovation and ideas are there, the financial support never was. Its often been said that Irish people who go abroad have a record of tremendous success wherever they land, excelling above and beyond what might be expected, the reasons for this are the lack of support they received in Ireland, which they found elsewhere. And now we have another wave of our best and brightest heading off to build other countries.

Welease

Amhran Nua wrote: »

The worst effect of the recession will be and is the loss of the young people, the future of the country, and all the potential they represent.


Exactly right, unless we reduce wages to the lowest level within the EU (completely impossible as well as ruinous for the economy) we need to compete on more than wages. Infrastructure, rents, energy costs, broadband connectivity, all of these can be addressed to provide a more attractive environment for business.


I'd strongly disagree with this. There are plenty of innovative ideas in Ireland and from Irish people, from blue sky to practical, but the funding just isn't there, and hasn't been there for a long time.

Local authority enterprise boards provide minimal funding, and even then you need to have the money spent before you get refunded on the receipts. Enterprise Ireland focuses on successful businesses which want to expand with high minimum criteria to qualify for assistance (which you don't need by that stage), and there are few enough of those. Venture capital isn't something you find a lot of in Ireland, angel investors are a US thing. The banks are the worst joke of all - during the boom you could only get funding for property related investments, afterwards they aren't lending at all.

The education is there, the innovation and ideas are there, the financial support never was. Its often been said that Irish people who go abroad have a record of tremendous success wherever they land, excelling above and beyond what might be expected, the reasons for this are the lack of support they received in Ireland, which they found elsewhere. And now we have another wave of our best and brightest heading off to build other countries.

Well in fairness, you can strongly disagree with me, but you didn't bother to quote the other point i made.. (you can substiute companies for state agencies where it applies).

Welease wrote: »

- Innovation takes money.. and requires a culture that can deal with risk.. We don't have enough companies (or individuals) in Ireland who seem to do Innovation well. There are of course, notable exceptions, but not enough to keep the majority of people in this country employed if the MNC's disappeared.

The funding isn't in general being made available by companies, individuals, state agencies to high risk innovative ventures. As you said, even banks would only loan to "sure fire" (lol) ventures such as construction projects.

Amhran Nua

Welease wrote: »

Well in fairness, you can strongly disagree with me, but you didn't bother to quote the other point i made.. (you can substiute companies for state agencies where it applies).

Well I guess the point is that I feel there is no shortage of Irish people with drive, ideas and innovation, and very few of those ideas ever get to see the light of day for financial support reasons. Its an environmental issue, not a cultural one - if the financial support was put in place, there would be many new businesses started, such as these entrepreneurs.

Welease

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Well I guess the point is that I feel there is no shortage of Irish people with drive, ideas and innovation, and very few of those ideas ever get to see the light of day for financial support reasons. Its an environmental issue, not a cultural one - if the financial support was put in place, there would be many new businesses started, such as these entrepreneurs.

Well we shall have to agree to disagree my experience sadly shows otherwise (I have spent 20 or so years working globally with UK, Israel, China, US, Russia etc.)

On a point of clarity though, we need to be clear about the difference between entrepreneurship and innovation. The example you linked is entrepreneurship, but is in no way related to the innovation and culture of innovation that I was commenting on. Some of the same underlying financial problems exist for both, but the issues for lack of success differ.

Amhran Nua

Welease wrote: »

Well we shall have to agree to disagree my experience sadly shows otherwise (I have spent 20 or so years working globally with UK, Israel, China, US, Russia etc.)

The plural of anecdote isn't data, as they say.

Welease wrote: »

On a point of clarity though, we need to be clear about the difference between entrepreneurship and innovation. The example you linked is entrepreneurship, but is in no way related to the innovation and culture of innovation that I was commenting on.

Hmm, R&D in both pharma and processors has received massive injections of capital in Ireland in the last year, in the middle of a worldwide recession no less, and both sectors are extremely competitive in terms on innovation on a global level.

Yes, the capability is here, always has been. No, the politicians haven't a clue how to capitalise on that.

Welease

Karsini wrote: »

Well my 6th year maths teacher was none other than a Kerry GAA player who got the position for the simple reason of who he was. He was qualified for metalwork but not leaving cert maths!

I haven't had time to locate the actual report, but looks like it's now starting to make the news.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0216/breaking50.html

MysticalRain

K-9 wrote: »

Probably part of it, but the money that was being made in Construction, Architecture, Estate Agency, Accountancy etc. meant they were the popular choices. It'll take 2/3 years for that to clear and maybe 3/4 years to see more Science and Maths graduates.

A similar way of looking at it is that you do need high wages to attract the best and brightest people into the technology and science sector. I know a lot of people that turned their noses up at a tech career for one in the industries listed above. That's why there are so many PhD's working in the banking industry, and not in tech related fields.

fontanalis

Regarding education would another issue from the bubble be that alot of young males dropped out of doing the leaving to make good money on the building sites?

Sleepy

Almost certainly. Lots of lads left school prior to LC to go make the good money that was offer and I'm sure even more never bothered with 3rd level. I can imagine a lot of these guys taking up the BTE scheme after being on the dole for a year.