Are the Leaving Cert results a short term win for Industry?

Posted on August 20th, by admin in Opinion. 7 comments

Today’s CAO offers showed that the demand for primary school teaching has gone down but for computer science and maths, it’s gone way up. I’m sure it will be cause for celebration amongst our friends in industry who have made it their mission over the last few years to get students interested in maths and technology degrees. However, without a better assessment tool than the Leaving Cert, I don’t think it matters whether one gets 400 or 500 or even 700 points (as seems to be now possible) to succeed in any third level course. In most third level courses, lecturers are looking for the critical thinkers, something the Leaving Cert cannot always depend upon. Many Leaving Cert points are earned through hothousing and learning things by rote and it might explain the high dropout percentages in first year in 3rd level.

In a smaller piece of news, Trinity College announced that from 2014, they will be assessing entrants on other criteria other than the Leaving Cert to ensure that students are placed on the correct courses. For me, this is the news that we should be celebrating more. There are very few 3rd level establishments in Ireland that base their enrollment on anything except Leaving Cert points so this is a fantastic step by one of the major universities. I hope the others follow suit.

http://twitter.com/rozzlewis rozz lewis

Great article..I agree..Why don´t we do a poll for how many people did the “jumping in the air” pose when they got their LC results? I didn´t…:(
http://about.me/nl_84 Nigel Lane

That’s definitely a step in the right direction from Trinity, that should be applauded.
simonmlewis

Thanks for the comments. Very happy to hear that move by Trinity. Let’s hope the rest take note, particularly the teacher training colleges
http://twitter.com/johnmayo John Heffernan

Simon maybe the service industry might be happy with the Leaving Cert, but those companies who operate further up the intellectual food chain, would not agree. I have attended a number of tech events where some have savaged the education system in Ireland in creating a cohort of risk adverse exam takers who are relying on spoon feeding teachers to get them across the line. A former boss of mine referred to the Irish Mammy effect, where as Johnny, the IT geek in the family, while not getting a public sector job as a teacher or as Garda will tend to lead to a “safe” multinational that that mammy has heard of rather than an interesting startup with missing vowels in their name.
One of the really interesting factors about multinational companies in Ireland (Google, Microsoft etc.) is the lack of Irish spin off companies from ex Google MS, Apple employees. Silicon Valley is full of start ups founders in their late 20s-30s going out on their own leaving vested shares options of the major players, the same is not happening in Ireland.

As someone who has been paying particular close attention to the job offerings from the AGILEAMY (multinationals) websites the majority of jobs offered are multilingual. Anyone that has been a Google or Microsoft office will notice the high number of multinational employees working there. Irish graduates are just not getting those jobs.

But then why is this of concern to second level or even primary teachers? I asked the question of why these companies have an interest in the education system off a Microsoft engineer. He said that the raw material for his company weighs 1.4kg and leaves his offices every evening. These companies are commercial brain factories -where ideas makers, problem solvers, network connectors, risk takers are the raw material for Microsoft. The problem in the education system to them is a vertical integration problem. Third level institutions can’t churn out the engineers MS require because the students coming in have not developed the critical thinking and emotional strength to enable to make them ready to take the next step. In many third level institutions, first year is spent in preparing those who can and weeding out those who can’t. A truly world class education system at second level would have done this already. Then again post primary teachers will complain that students coming in to 1st year have weak literacy and numeracy skills which due to the heavy information laden curriculum, they can’t really help them to catch up.

No doubt they are success stories that others will point to that will tear holes in my thesis here. But I wonder do they succeed despite the system rather than the result of the system.

In this system, no one really wins. Not the students…..

P.S If you think that this bunkum, buy a few drinks for an middle manager or team lead of an engineering team of one of the companies mentioned and then ask them what they think of the education system in Ireland…
- simonmlewis
  
  Thanks John. Completely agree with you. Was at a recent business event and the guy running it said that his mission in life was to rid Ireland of the Leaving Cert. No one disgreed.
http://twitter.com/lukejr Luke

Good article. John, you make some very valid points.

I started Computers Systems in UL in 2000, there was 280 in our year starting, a huge number. Today that same course has less than 40, points might be up, but I would be surprised if numbers starting increased 7 fold.
http://www.neteffects.com.au/ IT Support

Great news indeed! Definitely something to look forward too, first step in improving the education system.

rozz lewis says:

August 20, 2012 at 7:31 pm

Great article..I agree..Why don´t we do a poll for how many people did the “jumping in the air” pose when they got their LC results? I didn´t…:(

Nigel Lane says:

August 20, 2012 at 7:41 pm

That’s definitely a step in the right direction from Trinity, that should be applauded.

simonmlewis says:

August 20, 2012 at 7:45 pm

Thanks for the comments. Very happy to hear that move by Trinity. Let’s hope the rest take note, particularly the teacher training colleges

John Heffernan says:

August 20, 2012 at 8:05 pm

Simon maybe the service industry might be happy with the Leaving Cert, but those companies who operate further up the intellectual food chain, would not agree. I have attended a number of tech events where some have savaged the education system in Ireland in creating a cohort of risk adverse exam takers who are relying on spoon feeding teachers to get them across the line. A former boss of mine referred to the Irish Mammy effect, where as Johnny, the IT geek in the family, while not getting a public sector job as a teacher or as Garda will tend to lead to a “safe” multinational that that mammy has heard of rather than an interesting startup with missing vowels in their name.
One of the really interesting factors about multinational companies in Ireland (Google, Microsoft etc.) is the lack of Irish spin off companies from ex Google MS, Apple employees. Silicon Valley is full of start ups founders in their late 20s-30s going out on their own leaving vested shares options of the major players, the same is not happening in Ireland.

As someone who has been paying particular close attention to the job offerings from the AGILEAMY (multinationals) websites the majority of jobs offered are multilingual. Anyone that has been a Google or Microsoft office will notice the high number of multinational employees working there. Irish graduates are just not getting those jobs.

But then why is this of concern to second level or even primary teachers? I asked the question of why these companies have an interest in the education system off a Microsoft engineer. He said that the raw material for his company weighs 1.4kg and leaves his offices every evening. These companies are commercial brain factories -where ideas makers, problem solvers, network connectors, risk takers are the raw material for Microsoft. The problem in the education system to them is a vertical integration problem. Third level institutions can’t churn out the engineers MS require because the students coming in have not developed the critical thinking and emotional strength to enable to make them ready to take the next step. In many third level institutions, first year is spent in preparing those who can and weeding out those who can’t. A truly world class education system at second level would have done this already. Then again post primary teachers will complain that students coming in to 1st year have weak literacy and numeracy skills which due to the heavy information laden curriculum, they can’t really help them to catch up.

No doubt they are success stories that others will point to that will tear holes in my thesis here. But I wonder do they succeed despite the system rather than the result of the system.

In this system, no one really wins. Not the students…..

P.S If you think that this bunkum, buy a few drinks for an middle manager or team lead of an engineering team of one of the companies mentioned and then ask them what they think of the education system in Ireland…

simonmlewis says:

August 21, 2012 at 6:33 am

Thanks John. Completely agree with you. Was at a recent business event and the guy running it said that his mission in life was to rid Ireland of the Leaving Cert. No one disgreed.

Luke says:

August 21, 2012 at 6:06 pm

Good article. John, you make some very valid points.

I started Computers Systems in UL in 2000, there was 280 in our year starting, a huge number. Today that same course has less than 40, points might be up, but I would be surprised if numbers starting increased 7 fold.