Happy Friday

Written by Education Officer | 05 November 2010

Fellow students...I have been a bold Education Officer. I haven't updated this since September 8th so I apologise. Sadly the lack of updates isn't as a result of me not having work to do, it's really is the opposite I am afraid to say. (That and my total lack of ability to use computers)

To date we've gone through Orientation, Freshers Week, Class-Rep Elections, Class-Rep training, College Councils, S.U Council, a bit of a protest along with the usual committee meetings along the way in addition to an awful lot of casework. Being honest the casework, the amount of time that it takes up and the nature of it really turns the day to day job into one of fire fighting as your intended work plan quickly goes out the window as you end up fighting with a department/college on something that landed on your door out of the blue. Having said that I've had it all swing my way bar one case so I am not really complaining.

The one thing that I want to remind you about is the Postgrad elections next week. Boxes are located in the Graduate Studies Office and the SU building so vote early and often. With that I am off...I will try to upload my officer reports to this site at some stage but my inability to use computers could delay that for some time.

Rankings...

Written by Education Officer | 08 September 2010

Apologies for not updating this in a few weeks…To describe the last week as hectic would be an understatement. I won’t go into specifics other to say that the student body got their money’s worth from us as a result!

I just wanted to leave a quick note about the world university rankings which came out this morning. For those of you that don’t know UCC have jumped into the top two-hundred for the first time which is a great achievement regardless of the comments of the many detractors. The point that needs to be made however is that UCC has no reasonable chances of continuing its upward crusade with the current funding situation that exists.

Over the next few weeks you’re going to be hearing an awful lot about the student services charge in relation to the registration fee and the exorbitant government claw back. Given today’s news the simple message that I want to get across is that here and now is the time to get involved…For the sake of your education and the status of the college going forward.

Leaving Cert

Written by Greg Higgins | 20 August 2010

Tuesday evening last I attended the removal service for my secondary schools secretary Miss Rita Field. The removal presented me with an opportunity to talk to a few of my teachers, many of whom I haven’t spoken to since graduating in 2007. One thing that struck me as I drove home from the removal is how much I have changed as a person in those three years…I imagine that many of my teachers that knew me throughout my time in Christians wouldn’t recognise me in that regard now as a result. The main thing that struck me was that whilst I got a good education in CBC I only really grew and matured in University. And it is on that statement that this blog post originates.

My sister received her leaving cert results on Wednesday and now, along with 50,000+ teenagers, await CAO offers Monday next to see what path they are now destined to follow. The fact remains that the leaving cert and the system built around it is not a true and accurate barometer of intellectual ability. As mentioned above I know where I developed and it wasn’t secondary school.

With that the following question needs to be asked; are we happy spending resources on a ‘conveyor belt’ system of second level education, where intellectual freedom and creativity are sacrificed for the sake of a two week intensive recall memory exercise? I am convinced that Ireland as a society must now ask what we want our education sector to look like and what we want to achieve with it…It’s a debate that we need to have because without it the education sector and the future of the country as a whole is in a perilous state.

Update and Officer Report

Written by Greg Higgins | 06 August 2010

Sort of a quite week this week. I spend the week organising the new night bus which is a joint venture between UCC and CIT. John Lane and myself have been working on a new route that favours UCC students so I hope that it takes off this year. I have also been writing lots of bits and pieces for websites and the Fresher's diary which is like draining oil from sand.

My officer report for the month is here http://www.collegeroad.ie/images/word_files/report_education_july.pdf so feel free to read it and get back to me if you have any comments.

Take care,

Gh.