Oct 06 2011

Irish Universities Fall Further

Category: Third LevelTeknovis @ 18:51

Exactly a month after I last wrote about Irish Universities falling in global rankings (see Irish University Rankings)  there is another rankings list published that indicates an even greater fall. TCD is now the highest placed university in position 117. See The World University Rankings 2011-2012 for the complete list.

According to some articles, such as Government faces fees pressure as universities slide, the universities believe that the solution lies in reintroducing university fees:

UCD president Dr Hugh Brady said: “We are working harder and longer with far less but it will be difficult for us and for all of the Irish universities to compete in the years ahead unless the nettle of higher education funding is grasped.”

This is interesting coming from the seventh highest earner in education in Ireland (see The top 100 best-paid in education).

Personally, I believe that the Irish universities mismanage a lot of the money which they receive. I think that academics are paid too much in Ireland, and increasingly their performance is failing. Perhaps this is part of the general falling standards in Irish universities.

I personally know some academics working in EU universities that are ranked higher than the Irish universities, yet they earn significantly less than their Irish counterparts.

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Oct 04 2011

The 50 Most Influential People in Education

Category: EducationTeknovis @ 19:26

I read an interesting article about the most influential people in education in Ireland – The 50 most influential people in education.

The two things that surprised me most were:

  • A lot of the people in the top 10 are not typically associated with Irish education!
  • Brian McCraith, President of DCU, is the only university representative with a leadership role in the top 10 – well done!

It would be interesting to correlate this list with the list cited in Top Educational Salaries in Ireland!

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Oct 03 2011

Facebook and You

Category: Humour,InternetTeknovis @ 19:37

Somebody was discussing the virtues and dangers of Facebook with me recently, and he subsequently sent me this cartoon summarising his feelings :)

Facebook and You

Facebook and You

In fairness, this could equally be applied to Amazon‘s new Silk browsing experience! See Amazon’s Silk looks creepily Phorm-ulaic.

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