Transcript What can Higher Education do to Resolve The Irish

Bologna Ireland Conference: ‘Placing Bologna in Context’
“What
can Higher Education do to Resolve The Irish Crisis?”
King’s Inn, Dublin 15th October
Professor Ray Kinsella
The Final End of Economics
 “The Economist, like everyone else, must concern
himself with the ultimate aims of man”
Alfred Marshall
Source: Cited in Pat Collins, Veritas
2008
A Vision of What Education should be About
“[There is] a new awareness of the legitimate plurality of educational purposes and evidence
of a mature commitment to the achievement of balance in educational aims: to the
pursuit of a harmony between academic achievements and spiritual qualities, between
liberal learning and vocational aptitude, between artistic capabilities and technical
endeavours, between personal accomplishments and social responsibilities.
Within such a balance, the key concern would be to enable each pupil to discover the nature
and scope of his or her particular potentials and limitations; to enable each and every
pupil to make the most of these potentials; to overcome limitations wherever this is
possible; to mitigate their effects wherever it is not.
In short, educational policy and endeavour would be concerned to enable each pupil to
appropriate from moral and spiritual tradition, and from the plenitude of human
learning, something of an abiding and sustaining sense of identity, amid the ubiquity of
change in contemporary society.”
Source: Professor John Coolahan, ‘Report on the National Education Convention’, 1994
The Ethical Roots of the Global and
European Crisis
“The Global Financial Crisis is Primarily a crisis in Ethics...The...Crisis –
and its economic and its political counterparts – represent a
catastrophic failure in the system of corporate capitalism, which had
no regard to the dignity of the Individual, or to the Common Good – at
the heart of which is the Human Person.
The Rebuilding of Trust in Banking requires an acknowledgement of
objectively-based standards of right and wrong, and these are at the
heart of Ethics.”
Source:
Ray Kinsella, ‘Rebuilding Trust in Banking’, Dublin, Veritas, 2009
The Emasculation of Moral Philosophy: Geuss on
MacIntyre
“...let me try to give a simple answer to the simple question which is the topic of
this conference, or rather let me try to give two simple answers to the two
components of the double-barrelled question which the participants in the
Conference are invited to consider:
What happened in moral philosophy in the 20th century, and what happened to
moral philosophy in the 20th century?
My answer to this is roughly that Nietzsche is what happened ‘in’ moral
philosophy, that is, roughly, that the very idea of a ‘universal’ moral philosophy
having any kind of trans-subjective authority came under attack, and was
replaced by a consumerist array of views which was a reflection of a life devoted
to more or less unreflective consumption structured only by aesthetic
predilections and the usual sociological imperatives of novelty, snobbism, etc.
What happened ‘to’ moral philosophy is that Marxism presented the only genuine
and potentially viable attempt at reconstituting some notion of objective moral
authority, one based on attributing to production an absolute political priority,
and that attempt failed.”
How the Financial Sector Lost its Way: Are there
Implications for Education?
“The Financial Sector, which has seen the value of financial transaction
far surpass that of real transactions, runs the risk of developing
according to a mentality that has only itself as a point of reference,
without being connected to the real foundations of the economy...
A financial economy that is an end in itself is destined to contradict its
goal, since it is no longer in touch with its roots...it has abandoned its
original and essential role of contributing to the development on
people and the human community”
Source: Pope John Paul II, to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences,
1997
What – and How –Higher Education Contributions to the Community
•Knowledge Acquisition
•Skills Acquisition
•Induction into Professional and Vocational
Competency
•Life-long Learning
•Research:
•The centrality of Humanities
•The generation, and attraction, of sciences
and technologies
The Economy
•Skilled Labour Force
•Higher Productivity Labour Force
•Higher Quality and Productive
Labour Force
•Resilience of Domestic Economy
•Attractiveness to Inward Investors
Society/Community
The Human Person
“Love must be reconsidered with in its authentic
value as the highest and universal criterion of the
whole of social ethics”
Higher (Quality) Employment
The Virtues
More Inclusive and Robust Society
•Epistemology
•Social Mobility and Inclusivity
•Openness to Critical Thinking
•A more Robust Civic Society
•Deepening of National Identity and
Culture and Participation in
Globalised World
Failed Philosophical, Political
and Business Mind-Set
Management of
Sovereign Debt
Crisis
Banks
Domestic
Business
Economy
Economic
Adjustment
Bank Stability
Public Finance
Failed Philosophical, Political
and Business Mind-Set
Banks
Management of
Sovereign Debt
Crisis
Misconceived
and toxic loan
losses
Loss of Credibility
+ Autonomy
Domestic
Business
Credit Squeeze
Premature EU-driven
Adjustment
Economy
Economic
Adjustment
Recapitalisation
Regulation
Bank Stability
Credit Crisis
Debt/Deficit
Crisis
Public Finance
Failed Philosophical Political
and Business Mind-Set
Banks
Management of
Sovereign Debt
Crisis
Misconceived
and toxic loan
losses
Loss of Credibility
+ Autonomy
Domestic
Business
Unemployment
Credit Squeeze
Premature EU-driven
Adjustment
Negative Equity
Fear
Economy
Economic
Adjustment
Societal Stress
Recapitalisation
Regulation
Bank Stability
Credit Crisis
Debt/Deficit
Crisis
Public Finance
Failed Philosophical, Political
and Business Mind-Set
Banks
Management of
Sovereign Debt
Crisis
Misconceived
and toxic loan
losses
Loss of Credibility
+ Autonomy
Domestic
Business
Unemployment
Credit Squeeze
Premature EU-driven
Adjustment
Negative Equity
Fear
Economy
Economic
Adjustment
Exodus
Societal Stress
Recapitalisation
Regulation
Bank Stability
Credit Crisis
Debt/Deficit
Crisis
Public Finance
Recession: Ireland’s Demographic Dividend
Percentage of the population under 30:
 Ireland: 43.54%
 Poland: 38.71%
 Denmark: 35.96%
 EU (27) Average: 35.94%
 Germany: 31.1%
Source: Eurostat January 2009
Number of Person (in thousands) on Live Register for One Year or over
Source: CSO data
Long-term Unemployed as a Percentage
of Total Unemployment in each age group
50
45
40
35
30
15-24
25
25-44
45 and over
20
15
10
5
0
2007Q12007Q22007Q32007Q42008Q12008Q22008Q32008Q42009Q12009Q22009Q32009Q42010Q1
Source: CSO
*Estimate
The Conscience of a Nation
“Wake up and look around you. Where are the fruits of our
pampering? Where are the schools, hospitals and basic
infrastructure that should be the legacy of the halcyon days...ask
yourselves, where did the money go? Ponder as to whether those
elected to govern wisely should not have spent judiciously on the
basics of our economy and heeded the right of our people to
decent health and educational services, and all that is ancillary
to the care and succour of the most disadvantaged of our society.
These are grim times and the pity is that they need not have been
so bad...time is not on our side.”
Source: Maurice Nelligan, The Irish Times, January 13th 2009
“Ireland and the Knowledge Economy: The New Techno-Academic
Paradigm” (1998)
This text provides a systematic analysis of the convergence of the higher education sector and
technology-based industry as the fulcrum of knowledge-driven economic growth.
The authors describe this convergence as a paradigm shift at the heart of which is knowledge as the new
form of equity. This, they argue, is the genesis of the emerging 21st-century economy.
This study provides a framework for science and technology policy and the national knowledge-base. It
examines issues concerning intellectual property and technology transfer in detail, and also provides
a critique of the financing of innovation by EU credit institutions.
The central focus of the book is on the role of universities in the generation, transfer and
commercialization of the knowledge economy.
The study draws on the experience of the Republic of Ireland, a prototypical small open economy which
is growing fast at the threshold of the third millennium.
VJ McBrierty and RP Kinsella
The Economic Crisis and
Skill-Building in the EU
The severity of the economic crisis has added an
exceptional degree of unpredictability about the future
of the world’s economy, and underlines the need for
skills upgrading at all levels in order to drive Europe’s
short-term recovery and longer term growth and
productivity.
Source: EU Contribution to the European Higher Education Area, Brussels 2010
The Economic Crisis and
Skill-Building in the EU: The Imperative for
Greater Investment
Sustained and increased investment in higher education
is essential to drive this growth at local, national and
European levels.
To this effect, the Commission has proposed a
benchmark: that public and private investment in
modernised higher education should reach at least 2 %
of GDP.
Source: EU Contribution to the European Higher Education Area, Brussels 2010
The Economic Crisis and Skill-Building:
Widening Access to Higher Education
Forecasts indicate that most new jobs will be created at the highest
qualification levels 3, but, compared to other developed economies in
North America and Asia, Europe does not have enough young people
entering higher education and not enough adults have ever seen a
university from the inside.
If we want to maintain and improve our standard of living we need to find
ways to widen access to initial studies and learning at all ages.
Source: EU Contribution to the European Higher Education Area, Brussels 2010
Expenditure on Tertiary Education as a
Percentage of GDP 2007
The Contribution of Higher Education to European
Recovery and to the Development of Europe
 The Philosophy – Centrality of the Human Person
 The Benchmark – the General Good
 The Vision – Building on all that Universities in
Europe have been, have nurtured – and can contribute.
 The Goal – Increased investment in values-based
institutions providing evidence-based support in a
learning environment characterised by a culture of
service rather than of power and foster creativity and a
participative culture of learning embedded within the
needs and possibilities of the Community which they
serve and all of their stakeholders.