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Page 10-11
The College Tribune
February 9th 2010
The Difference is we’re independent
Issue 8 Volume 23
Teanga Agus Anam
Profs hit out at O’Keeffe l Clash over lecturing hours l Job “more than teaching” Niall Dolphin UCD professors have come out in defence of their jobs after comments made last week by Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe. O’Keeffe once again created consternation among Ireland’s elite educators when he criticised their workload. He accused some university professors of teaching as few as four hours a week. The Minister said he would like to see university professors spend more time teaching in the classroom, irrespective of the amount of time spent conducting research and administrative duties. In comparison, O’Keeffe cited the fact that lecturers in institutes of technology are contracted to at least sixteen class-contact hours per week plus administration. The Minister expressed concern that university professors were being paid between €120,000 and €143,000 a year. He has asked the Comptroller and Auditor General to take the light teaching load into account in a value for money audit of higher education. Several UCD professors have spoken in defence
of their positions and workloads. Professor Gerard Casey, who lectures in Philosophy, said that it is only professors at the top of the academic hierarchy who are earning the salary mentioned by the Minister. “This position is reached usually after a minimum of twenty years of service. Very few academics attain this rank or this salary.” Casey believes the Minister is also negating the importance of conducting research in the day to day work of a university professor. “Once you have a job, if you want to advance towards the mythic heights of professordom, you have to do things that get you promoted, and in today’s academic world, that’s primarily research.” In addition to teaching, research benefits students directly, according to Casey. “The quality of your degree depends on the quality of the institution granting it, and the quality of the institution depends on the quality of its academic staff, and the quality of its academic staff is achieved and maintained by their research and publication profile.”
INSIDE
Analysis, pg 3
UCD is set for its biggest Seachtain na Gaeilge ever with over 1,000 people signing up to speak Irish this week
CAO points to climb Karl O’Doherty The increased number of applicants in this year’s CAO will drive points substantially higher and will mean more intense competition for university places this Autumn. The initial deadline for applications to the Central Application Office (CAO) for the next academic year passed on February 1st with a record numbers of applicants. Further education is now more popular than ever before with an estimated 72,500 applications submitted to the Galway office. This figure represents an increase of about
l Record number of CAO applicants l HEA directive to cut staff by 6% means numbers of courses may be reduced
10% on last years initial application by 66,500 people seeking courses. The number of applicants may still rise though, as the final deadline for late applications to be submitted is May 1st. The rise in points is expected to be seen in Arts, Business and Science based courses following the trend from last year. Broadranging courses have gained popularity over the last few years due to uncertainty in the job market for more specialised degree holders. Courses related to the building industry are expected to be even lower than last year, where demand for some courses fell by 40%. There are several reasons according to
education and careers experts for this increase. This year sees an unprecedented number of mature students, more than 15 000, applying for places. There are new social welfare rules that mean some people on jobseekers allowances risk losing their benefits unless they are in education or training. Also, there are an estimated 2,000 more Leaving Certificate students than last year. AS well as this, students that would previously have entered the workforce after second level education have been left with little other choice than to apply for third level courses. A steadily increasing number of courses
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and other options available to prospective third level students have contributed to a decline in points required for a large number of courses. Due to a Higher Education Authority (HEA) directive to cut staff by 6% in the period from December 2008 to December of this year, numbers of courses may be reduced. This combined with the above mentioned factors, could produce an increase beyond even what is expected. System-wide, students accepted 45,582 places for this academic year, displaying an increase of more than 8% on 2008, which itself was an increase of 6% on 2007.