Remember the White Paper on Adult Education, the Government's multi-million pound plan to upgrade the "Cinderella" of the education sector?
Willie O'Dea, (right) the ubiquituous Minister of State, is rightly proud of his handiwork and anxious to get on with things. Only one problem: those mean spirits who control the public finances are raining on his parade. Willie has enlisted the help of Bertie in a last-ditch attempt to get his hands on the money. Will these efforts be in vain? Or will Bertie save adult education? Keep a close eye on the Estimates when they are published shortly.
Even the most dynamic and self-confident of souls have to admit the recessionary winds are blowing. One of those is, Professor Nicolas Negroponte, founder and chairman of Media Lab Europe, a prominent pet project of Bertie's situated in the old Guinness Hopstore building.
Last week Negroponte had to admit that despite Bertie's impassioned support, the project seems to be facing tough times.
As disclosed in this newspaper earlier this year, the project is fiercely resented by some academics in the Irish education community.
Negroponte now says the lab will receive as little as 50 per cent of its operating costs from corporate sponsors and will have to get its money from elsewhere. With IT now deeply unfashionable among more strait-laced investors, this will not be an easy task for the American/Irish research institution.
The introduction of the Freedom of the Information Act is causing no end of heartache for our universities. Whereas Government departments are by now well accustomed to hacks demanding every scrap of information, some of the colleges are taking their time coming to terms with the New World Order.
One college has refused to handle requests by e-mail! Another demanded that all requests should be handwritten and individually signed. Congrats to UCD, DIT and DCU. which have a more flexible approach.
Meanwhile, every Government department will readily accept requests by e-mail with the minimum of fuss. Irish universities, the people supposedly at the cutting edge of the hi-tech revolution, please copy! Time for a decree from the Higher Education Authority.
Got any education gossip? You can e-mail us in confidence at teacherspet@irish-times.ie
