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volume xviii · issue iii · www.universityobserver.ie
opinion
Observer Editorial
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Ruairí Quinn Is the Presidency an writes exclusively for the University Observer on Educational Reform
irrelevant position?
WHY ALMOST 25 MILLION PEOPLE LISTEN TO
MARC MARON
PGDE students misled over course level EU to spend four million on intra-EU job placements Confusion over re-naming of PGDE . Students unaware of Level 8 classification
Kate Rothwell Deputy Editor An EU budget of four million euro is to support an expected 2,000 to 3,000 intra-EU job placements in 2012-2013. The programme, entitled ‘Your first EURES job’ (YfEj) is an element of the European Commission’s ‘Youth on the Move’ initiative, and was first proposed as part of the EU 2020 strategy. It is now classified as a ‘preparatory action’, which is defined as “a scheme designed to prepare proposals with a view to the adoption of future actions”. In a document received from the European Commission by the University Observer, the scheme was described as “an ‘Erasmus-style’ scheme to foster youth job mobility across the EU-27 countries.” Financial support will be provided, in the form of flat-rate financing, for both employers and job-seekers involved in the scheme. A European Commission spokesperson explained to the University Observer how the scheme will support jobseekers travelling abroad for the purposes of an interview or starting a secured job, but will not cover the exact expenses incurred. “The objective is to provide them with a contribution (fixed amount) for the travel and subsistence costs if they make an interview trip abroad and/or for moving to the country of destination if they get a job abroad. The scheme will not cover actual costs.” The maximum cost of an average job placement is estimated to be 1,800 euro. All jobseekers aged eighteen to thirty from an EU member state will be eligible to participate in the scheme. The “young people” within this age group are described as hav-
ing “the potential to be more mobile than middle-aged or older people.” The EC spokesperson explained that the scheme is not graduate-focused. “YfEj is not exclusively tailored for labour market entrants or for graduates. All young people aged eighteen to thirty, national of any of the EU-27 Member States and legally resident in any of these countries can apply, irrespective of their level of qualifications, work experience or social/economic background.” The scheme looks to be particularly beneficial for jobseekers from countries in economic difficulty, as employment rates will be taken into consideration. “Labour market needs and labour supply offer will determine where recruitment projects will be carried out.” While all employers in the EU member states are eligible to apply to the scheme, SMEs (small and medium enterprises) will be prioritised as they “represent ninety-nine per cent of enterprises in the EU and account for about seventy per cent of new jobs.” A call for proposals “to select labour market organisations with the necessary employment expertise and management capacity to implement the preparatory action at European level” was launched on August 22nd of this year, and final proposals from applicant organisations who will “act as job brokers, i.e. provide intermediation employment services targeting young jobseekers, job changers and employers” will be submitted this Thursday, 20th October. The proposed activities of the scheme are expected to be initiated before March 2012. Read Kate Rothwell’s analysis of this story on page 6.
UCDSU President Pat De Brún in talks with PGDE students Chief Photographer: David Nowak Katie Hughes News Editor Students pursuing what they believed was a Level 9 Post-Graduate Diploma in Education were notified last week that their course would be renamed the Professional Diploma in Education and that the course was now officially ranked at Level 8 on the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ) scale. The branding of the Post Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE), formerly the H. Dip, as a Level 8 course is not a University issue but an international one. It comes from the Bologna Process, which aims to standardise higher education across the European Union. The NFQ and Bologna Framework were aligned in 2006. If the initiative is not rolled out at the same time across Europe, students feared that employment prospects of those who graduate with a Level 8 degree might be in danger when compared to those of students whose universities did not implement the change for two to three years and who are still graduating with a perceived Level 9 degree. In an e-mail sent by Head of the School of Education, Prof. Ciaran
Sugrue, students were notified that the Irish Universities Association (IUA) had “already been in contact with the relevant UK and international bodies to ensure that they understand that the H.D.E., the P.G.D.E ., the G.D.E. and the P.D.E. are all the same qualification”. The e-mail also stated that the decision applied to all graduates over the past several years. Prof. Sugrue informed students that the change of title of the programme was officially ratified by the Academic Council of the University on September 22nd, and that the decision “was consistent with one already agreed by all of the Registrars across the universities, but until such time as the decisions were made, it was neither possible nor appropriate to make any announcement to that effect”. The decision was made to “inform students as soon as possible” so that students would hear the information from UCD itself as the department “was aware that similar announcements were being made or about to be made in other institutions”. The e-mail clarified that the PGDE has been a ‘floating’ qualification since the establishment of the National Qualifications Authority of Ireland (NQAI) though it was assumed to be a
Level 9 course due to the programme being labelled as “post-graduate”. Due to the allocation of Level 8 status to the programme, the name of the course was consequently changed “to reflect the Level 8 status”, a move agreed between “the authority, the Registrars, and the IUA”. The announcement caused major concerns in terms of grant applications; a student is eligible to qualify for a grant providing they continue up through the NFQ scale, for example taking a Level 9 course after a Level 8, but not if they pursue a qualification at a level at which they have previously qualified. These concerns were since allayed as the legislation involved makes an exception for teacher training grant allowances. Students’ Union President Pat de Brún stated that there were major concerns with regard to communication; “there is no excuse [for] how it was communicated to students, there is also a question of legitimate expectation – all of these students have a receipt from their fees that they paid for the PGDE and are now being told that it’s not that”. Read Katie Hughes’ analysis of this story on page 6.
Dublin Bike scheme on Campus within five years Katie Hughes News Editor The Dublin Bike Scheme (DBS) is set to expand to UCD within the next five years. Students’ Union Campaigns and Communications Officer Brendan Lacey has been lobbying the National Transport Authority (NTA) since the start of the summer to ensure that service would expand to UCD, “I have a commitment from them now that it will be at the gates of UCD in five years time”.
The scheme will not be able to be implemented any earlier due to the excessive costs that setting up a pop-up system in UCD would incur, “everyone would just leave the bikes here in UCD then you have to ferry them back so that’s why they’re saying [the DBS] has to grow naturally”. Lacey is also investigating setting up a bike scheme compatible to that of the DBS in the nearer future, which would then be able to merge with the official system once it had expanded sufficiently. “I’m trying to investigate whether it’s feasible for us in UCD to co-pilot
a scheme that would just be a UCD bike scheme where we get our own stations but it would be compatible with the DBS … it would basically be for cycling around campus or just home for lunch or whatever, it could work off the UCard system; it’s something that I don’t yet know [whether] it is feasible or not.” However, Lacey has encountered problems with the alternative idea, “I’m trying to find out who made the original bikes – for some reason it’s a nightmare to find out. What we’re trying to do is try and get the same
bikes and stations that the DBS uses or ones that are compatible so when the bike scheme arrives, they could still use what UCD has, it would be interchangeable”. If the idea of setting up UCD’s own bike scheme was to come to fruition, the Students’ Union would seek the University’s financial aid as well as external funding, “finances and budgets are tight this year so we can’t afford to build a bike scheme; my idea would be to seek funding from the likes of advertising space, very similar to how the DBS originally
worked; also, through the use of the bikes, there would have to be a small charge for the maintenance of them but hopefully over time it would come to cover itself”. The initiative to push for the implementation of a bike-scheme in UCD was “born out of frustration with the parking problem … we’ve got over 20,000 people to try and fit into 3,000 parking spaces, it doesn’t matter what scheme you come up with … it’s not going to solve the problem … what I want to do is try and encourage people to use alternative methods to get here”.