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

Source: Professor John Coolahan, ‘Report on the National Education Convention’, 1994

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.”

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

The Human Person“Love must be reconsidered with in its authentic value as the highest and universal criterion of the whole of social ethics”

Society/Community•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

Higher (Quality) Employment

The Virtues

More Inclusive and Robust Society

Failed Philosophical, Political and Business Mind-Set

Failed Philosophical, Political and Business Mind-Set

Failed Philosophical Political and Business Mind-Set

Exodus

Failed Philosophical, Political and Business Mind-Set

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

Source: CSO data

*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 InvestmentSustained 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 EuropeThe Philosophy – Centrality of the Human PersonThe Benchmark – the General GoodThe 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.