A Different View
Academic ability shouldn’t be the only measure of success
There was a time in this country not so long ago that only the privileged few extended their education beyond the old Primary Cert; then the Inter Cert became a commendable achievement and finally the Leaving lived up to its name.
But now we’ve moved into a world where academic appears to be the only option and the formal learning curve can comfortably be stretched out into your late twenties.
Because we’ve just moved the bar up another level; now a primary degree is just the new Leaving Cert and a Masters is almost a given – and academia appears to be the only option.
Unless someone pays heed to the advice offered recently by the real Taoiseach, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who revealed her blueprint for solving youth unemployment.
She wants to promote the merits of Germany’s dual system of schooling and work experience – a mix of classroom learning and on-the-shop-floor work experience – as the best way forward at a time when almost six million under-25s in Europe are out of work. What she’s actually talking about are apprenticeships – not just as we know them in terms of mechanics or plumbers, but in terms of all careers in that you can learn more in a hands-on environment as you can in the lecture hall.
But we are pre-occupied with third level when clearly that no more suits everyone now than it did a generation ago.
Of course the reality is that a job in the civil service is no longer an option and there’s no need for apprentices when they are thousands of skilled tradesmen already out of work – but that doesn’t mean we should shove all of our young people into university because we can’t think of anything else for them to do.
Merkel quite rightly points out that we shouldn’t see academic success as the only measure – and the tens of thousands of Irish graduates who are either out of work or living in foreign parts are testimony to a one-track system here.
Germany, in contrast, has halved its youth unemployment since 2005 and they are now in a position to offer a place on a dual system training programme to every young person who wants one.
And that has resulted in a whole generation of skilled workers and master craftsmen taking their rightful place in German society, at the heart of an economy which hardly seems to have suffered because everyone doesn’t go to university.
In contrast here, we have thousands of twentysomethings with nothing more than writer’s cramp to show for sending out endless job applications; inevitable letters of rejections because they are overqualified for the jobs they would be more than willing to take.
It is not just the Government that’s at fault for this – the approach at second-level has become so blinkered that further education is the only serious option.
Everything is geared towards the points race so that you get your first choice on the CAO form; a sheet of paper with your exam results is the only measure of your success or failure for the first 18 years of your life.
But there’s no vision higher up the scale either; the Government came up with a JobBridge programme as a sort of quasi-internship, but in reality that’s just a way of massaging the unemployment figures.
We’ve had huge success in attracting hi-tech multi-nationals here on the back of our graduate numbers, but we’ve also become so fixated with this as the only measure of industrial success that we’ve dumped every other option.
The German idea is a more rounded approach to job creation as well as an acknowledgement that there is more than one measure of ability.
It is, of course, fantastic to live in a city and county with two top-class third-level facilities in NUIG and GMIT and we can never underestimate the value of having such easy access to academia on our doorstep. But, with 440,000 on the dole, clearly something else is also needed – and given that the German economy is the one we’ve already pinned all our hopes on, if they’ve found something that works, it at least demands closer analysis.
Because there’s more than one sort of third-level education – and perhaps it’s time we invested a little more as well in the university of life.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
The only time in your life that you should ever utter the words: “Do you know who I am?” are if you’ve just had a bang on the head or you are unfortunately suffering from dementia.
Because, otherwise, the phrase ‘do you know who I am’ only serves to make things a whole lot worse.
Normally, the phrase is unleashed towards late night door staff on a wave of alcohol – and never once in the history of time has it produced the result the utterer had intended.
The doorman may well know who you are which is often the very reason you’re not getting into the place in the first instance – or if he doesn’t know who you are, he won’t be unduly influenced when he does, unless you’re a famous movie star or his long-lost cousin.
‘Do you know where I am?’ might often be closer to the phrase you’re looking for, because that would serve you well when you’re looking for a taxi.
‘Do you know who I am?’ is a threatening phrase that in truth wouldn’t frighten the cat. But if you’re anxious to dig the hole a few shovels deeper, you should follow up with ‘I’d like to speak to your manager.’
Managers can be elusive at the best of times, but they’re normally rarer than hen’s teeth when it comes to the small hours of the morning – and even if they’re there, they are most likely watching proceedings on CCTV…just so they know who you are, in case you yourself can’t remember.
‘I’d like to speak to your manager’ suggests that you and he or she are from the one social sphere which is several strata north of the one occupied by door staff.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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A Different View with Dave O’Connell
As it turned out, we were much closer to a Eurovision win than we could ever have imagined – not Ireland, of course, because we’ve now mastered the art of just sending cannon fodder to be blown out in the semi-final.
No, this was just two of us – myself and our eldest – who were lucky enough to be at Anfield for the Reds’ recent win over Brentford, where positioned in the seat right in front of us were four happy lads from Finland.
One of them, we now know, was Käärijä, the singer of the catchiest song at Eurovision, Cha Cha Cha.
But just a week before 7,000 people sung his catchphrase at the Eurovision Arena, he and two his mates – accompanied by an older bloke who had to be either his dad or from the national broadcaster – sat anonymously in the same corner of the lower level of Anfield’s Main Stand.
He was utterly unknown to us as well of course, and the only thing that saw him stand out was his green nail varnish. Live and let live, of course, but it still ensures that you make an impression even if it looks like you were just very late for St Patrick’s Day.
Käärijä may well be Liverpool’s greatest Scandinavian fan, although the bar for that is set fairly high, given that they invade the city in greater numbers every two weeks than the Vikings did just once during the first millennium.
Equally, he may not be a football fan at all – although, as the rest of the week proved, he sure loves a crowd.
Positioned as we were in the corner of the Main Stand, the next section to us, around the corner in the Anfield Road Stand – currently adding a top layer – was occupied by the visiting Brentford supporters.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
Contactless payments reached a record €17.9 billion in Ireland last year – up by 31 per cent on 2021, as people came out from under their Covid shell and appear to have left their cash behind them.
Figures from the Banking & Payments Federation found that – despite the cost-of-living increases – the Irish public made three million contactless payments a day, worth an average of €53 million in the final quarter of 2022.
Given that there are 3.8 million people in Ireland over the age of 18, that means that almost every single one of us tapped the card every day last year.
And again, on the presumption that there are a few who still prefer peeling a fifty off a wad of notes, the true figure may be even higher, as we eschew actual money every time we go into a restaurant, bar or shop.
Then comes the monthly morning of reckoning when you open your statement – electronic of course because, like paper money, banks don’t deal in paper statements anymore either – and your guilty secrets unfurl like a rap sheet before your very eyes.
Five taps of a Friday night in the local, followed by a five-ounce burger meal on the way home.
And just why did you need a family-pack of crisps when a small bag would have done? Was all that beer and wine really for a party, or a night in just for one?
Cash provided plenty of dark corners to ignore your profligacy, but there are no hiding places in the contactless world.
Worse still, until that morning of reckoning arrives, you’ve no clue how much you’ve spent, and handing over the card doesn’t hurt half as much as parting with hard cash.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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