With the first round of CAO offers issued today, the death knell of the points race is being sounded. While certain courses still seek higher points, the reality for the majority of students is that they are likely to be offered one of their preferred courses. This is very much a result of the growing number of courses across third-level institutions, so that supply is outstripping demand.
The end of the race will not necessarily herald a decline in the academic standards of Leaving Cert students in this country but perhaps open up some breathing room for these young people. The ‘Young Social Innovators Annual Showcase 2007’ in the RDS last May was evidence of the enthusiasm and interest in social issues and equality among Transition Year students. What was clear from talking to the ‘TY’ teenagers was that they were vibrant full of praise for a year which had given them the time and freedom to pursue some non-traditional school activities but were filled with dread at the thoughts of the two-year to the Leaving Cert. With the lessening of pressure on points, these same students might not feel as overwhelmed come June 2009 and might have the time and mind space in the intervening years to continue to be involved in some of the community projects and issues. In addition, the placement offered to them at third-level may also be something they are truly interested in and enthused by.
Overall, the points race never served the young student. It kept those with an interest in a particular area out of that course (even if they met the minimum entry requirements as indicated by individual Universities). So even though technically the student might have had enough qualifications or honours in certain subjects to take the course, they could never win the points race. Now that some balance is being redressed, perhaps we can give students a better educational experience with room for greater civic engagement, throughout their entire educational experience. Surely the deciding factors for a good education should be a combination of academic learning and personal growth, rather than those few days (albeit sunny days!) in June.
Categories: Issues
Gala Banquet proceeds go to ALIVE.
Pictured (right) are Prof Ger Hurley, Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and External Affairs presenting Lorraine Tansey, Student Volunteer Coordinator for the Centre for 
Excellence in Learning and Teaching, with the proceeds from the Gala Banquet 2007.
The sum raised should help the ALIVE team roll out some innovative projects with the students and more information on this will become available when the academic year starts.
ALIVE has been recognised at a national level with an acknowledgement by the Taskforce on Active Citizenship Chairperson Mary Davis, on the necessity of this work within the third level sector in Ireland. More recently the government has made positive comment through the Higher Education Authority (HEA), which indicated its support to nationalise civic engagement and volunteering strategies, learning from the pioneering work of the University’s Community Knowledge Initiative (CKI).
Categories: News
How can a University share its knowledge with community? 
Can the University learn from community?
These are the kinds of issues which the Community Knowledge Initiative opens up for debate, and every so often there is a concrete example to consider.
Last Friday, Dr. Padraic Kenna (see pic right) of the Faculty of Law, NUI Galway, was in Ballymun, Dublin to finally meet face-to-face the group of community volunteers, welfare staff, and local authority tenants whom he had been teaching via videolink. Over the course of twelve weeks, the Ballymun Group had been patched into classes being taken by some 60 Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Civil Law students at NUI Galway.
Using the interactive video link, students on both sides of the country were able to interact with each other and with Padraic to discuss issues around the course content which was Housing Law & Policy. Input and questions were insightful and informed from Dublin – the University students could hear the real life experiences of public housing tenants. Rather than being isolated in a lecture hall surrounded by their peers, surrounded only by theory and text book examples, the law students based in Galway had a live link to the real impact of housing law and policy.
On Friday, Pat Carey T.D., representatives of Ballymun Community Law Centre, CKI and the Law Faculty gathered in Dublin for the award of certificates of attendance to the students there. For the full press release see http://www.nuigalway.ie/news/main_press.php?p_id=525
Categories: Issues · News
News this week of Denis O’Brien’s Communicorp becoming the successful bidder for the Irish radio stations -Today FM, FM104 and Highland Radio. Communicorp is growing fast, already having 38 radio stations across 7 countries in Europe. The seller, EMAP, has 42 local and eight national commercial radio stations and seven digital TV channels.
This is just the latest change in a market dominated by the few, where consolidation is key. Independent media is becoming a rare beast in this ever more concentrated ownership market.
The influence of media ownership on content was one of issues debated at a conference in Galway organised by a new group MediaForum. The newly formed organisation ‘runs and supports projects which; stimulate media awareness, empower with critical media literacy skills, facilitate access to the mainstream media, foster an appreciation of social analysis media, advocate for increased media education and network like-minded groups and individuals.’
The conference looked at media representations of communities and debated stereotyping, the portrayal of travellers, representation of youth and images of gender and race. These issues must be debated in a media environment that seems to become more standardaised all the time. The same news stories dominate the main media outlets in Ireland every day. RTE and TV3 will have the same headlines tonight, while the national newspapers will cover the same courtcase today.
Against this formulaic media stronghold, manhandled by PR consultants, community groups and organisations – whether combatting racism, or trying to move the debate on the environment forward – often struggle to get their message accross. The challenge for not-for-profit groups is to fully understand the media machine and how it works.
www.mediaforum.ie
Categories: Issues
If time is money, then should the money makers give more time?
This year’s report on Active Citizenship commissioned by the Taoiseach took a long look at volunteering in Ireland and tried to gauge what the trends were. It seems that despite anecdotal evidence and media impressions, the bottom has not fallen our of Ireland’s commitment to community and helping others. In fact, an ESRI report shows that there was an increase in the proportions of people in the adult population who say they do unpaid and regular volunteering, up from 17% in 2002 to 23% in 2006.
The 2006 census found that over 553,000 people, representing 16.4 per cent of the population aged 15 and over, were involved in voluntary activity in the four weeks prior to the census. What the Report of the Taskforce on Active Citizenship concluded was that barriers to civic participation included ‘obstacles in terms of time, new patterns of work and leisure’. The report ‘encourages individual businesses to pursue actively opportunity for engagement with the community…facilitating periodic secondments of staff to various community and voluntary organisations’.
In yesterday’s article by Niall Byrne in the Irish Independent, he notes a trend in Ireland for companies to ‘volunteer’ through their staff by giving them time off. He writes, ‘volunteering is being promoted by and increasing number of companies that see the benefit it brings in terms of reputation, staff bonding and training opportunities. An increasing number of employers are facilitating employees who want to give something back in their local community’. For example, Salesforce.com Foundation allows staff to give 1% of their paid work time to community, while Accenture Ireland’s staff are allowed two days paid leave for volunteering.
While giving staff time to volunteer is laudable, an eye should be kept on the net results. Allowing time to staff should be in addition to existing philanthropic contributions, rather than in lieu of such donations. The boost in morale and productivity, from paying staff to volunteer, as well as enhancement of corporate reputation and community engagement, should be its own reward. There should not be a quid-pro-quo reduction in philanthropic donations, otherwise, can it really be called volunteering?
Categories: Issues
If knowledge is power then will free knowledge empower?
On a related theme, an ‘apparently extraordinary trend is emerging’ are the words a recent OECD (Orgaisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) report uses to describe the emergence of open educational resources (OER).
The report’s title, Giving Knowledge for Free, reveals the potential implications of the OER movement. OER is not only a fascinating technological development and potentially a major educational tool. It accelerates the blurring of formal and informal learning, and of educational and broader cultural activities. It raises basic philosophical issues to do with the nature of ownership, with the validation of knowledge and with concepts such as altruism and collective goods. It reaches into issues of property and its distribution across the globe. It offers the prospect of a radically new approach to the sharing of knowledge, at a time when effective use of knowledge is seen more and more as the key to economic success, for both individuals and nations. How paradoxical this may turn out to be, and the form it will eventually take are entirely unforeseeable. The report offers some preliminary handles for understanding the issues raised.
To read the report visit http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/7/38654317.pdf
Categories: Issues
