Swan Group

Below is the first abstract from the group that I blogged about earlier in the week. I hope they havent already come to conclusions before starting the project though, given how bright the people involved are, I am sure they will give equal consideration to all sides of the argument.

In the course of the debate about fees, research is in danger of being set up as the bad guy. Some commentators during the week fell in to the usual fallacy of claiming that universities are either/or and must focus on teaching undergraduates rather than researching. This is just plainly wrong. In a good system, research supports teaching if for no other reason that we surely want students (particularly advanced students) to be lectured by people who are actually part of their fields. Issues such as the efficiency of the admin system were also brought out as arguments against research but this is not an argument against funding research but instead an argument for reforming the funding system.

"Abstract:
Since the early 1990s Ireland has experienced an economic boom. One of the reasons given for this rapid expansion in the gross domestic product has been the increase in foreign direct investment. The attraction of Ireland for foreign direct investment, it has been argued, has been the quality of the human capital located in the Republic. The expansion of persons holding Leaving Certificate or Third Level qualification has expanded dramatically. Recent proposals by the Department of Education and Science, Higher Education Authority and Enterprise Trade & Employment have suggested that Ireland become a “Research Knowledge Economy” but we hypothesise that this may not the case. The development of “Fourth Level Ireland” is taking away scarce resources from Third, Second and Primary Level education. Existing economic research illustrates that these funds are better spent on the development of skills at the foundation levels of education allowing the workforce to be more flexible and allow for fluid entry and exit from the education system over a citizen’s life-cycle. Further, we investigate the potential areas for continued Irish economic development, such as financial services and other high value-added activities that can be delivered through low-cost information communication technology (ICT). Our group will attempt to investigate the linkages between education and continued economic growth in the unique Irish situation of a small open economy driven by trade. To this effect the group will provide a series of recommendations in their final statement of findings. Interim reports and media statements are added to this site as they are produced."