Health and education self-delusion

Your recent editorials shine a spotlight on the grim realities overshadowing two fundamental elements of our wellbeing as a mature and thriving society — “dumbing down education” and “health services crisis” (The Irish Examiner, March 11, 2014).

The two core aspirations which we should cherish most are failing us, despite the veneer of pseudo-aggrandisement which wafts around entrepreneurial expertise, IT corporate excellence, can-do enterprise and a quality of healthcare second to none.

Morgan Kelly is right on the money. His claim of a “dumbing down” of the education system is precisely as you surmise, “a self-inflicted, avoidable weakness”.

Of course it’s all borne out of the cold business-end of education which funnels down from the competitive corporate script from which universities and other third-level colleges operate.

The bottom-line mentality prevails. Bums on seats, a spurious spectrum of courses, diplomas, certificates, diluted degrees, false masters’ programmes and dubious PhD topics are all concocted to maximise income to sustain and grow the product for each institution.

The level and quality of graduates, post-graduates and teaching staff is being continuously eroded, with the conferring of almost meaningless qualifications in terms of authentic ability and practical acumen for the real world.

The pre-third-level schooling system has bent over backwards to accommodate this, to the point that everyone is aspiring to a vacuous certification of ineptitude. via a loaded points system.

The level of creative flexibility, basic language prowess and an open willingness to think outside the narrow box is at a low ebb. It seems, though, that the colleges and their overpaid CEOs continue to plough on in the relentless quest for questionable research monies, fees-boosts and shallow PR stunts such as honorary doctorates. This only so that their coffers swell while most of their postgraduate research theses gather dust in their library basements, with little or no value or validity for anyone. Securing research grants is where it’s at, in terms of cooking up extra cash, much of which comes from the public purse as well as the private pocket. Why get bogged down in teaching undergraduates when you can rifle the research stash?

The crisis in the delivery of healthcare services unfolds in the same fragmented, vested-interest driven, unwieldy, unfit-for-purpose labyrinth of camouflage, subterfuge and administrative fudge.

“Today’s indictment deals with the delays, several years in some instances, faced by those who need neurological services,” you catalogue correctly, relating to the constant litany of shortfalls and under-performance.

Welcome to the best little country in the world — for self-delusion. !

Jim Cosgrove

Lismore

Co Waterford