Without variation, there can be no evolution. Darwin may not have actually
said that, but he might have.
Consider the seven Universities in the Republic of Ireland. There are all notionally “independent”, and all fiercely protective of that status. And yet they don’t act independently. I like to use the analogy of the chain-gang to describe the way in which they all shuffle together in the same direction, converging on the imagined promised land of “best practise”. Sometimes one of them will make a minor adjustment, which the others will rather reluctantly follow after a short delay. For example Trinity recently decided that all lecturers are in future are to be called Professors. This is by no means a radical move, as they are merely converging on the American norm. However expect the other Irish Universities to follow suit within a year or two.
It didn’t have to be that way. One just might have expected all of the Universities to act individually, to have all assumed radically different approaches to the challenges of higher education, to have leveraged their independence to the maximum. But they haven’t. Ask anyone what is the main distinguishing feature of each of our Universities in terms of how they approach the challenges of higher education, and nothing immediately springs to mind (of more substance than an advertising jingle). With talk of increased collaboration and even mergers, we can expect that trend to continue and to accelerate.
But what if the position we are converging on in ever smaller steps is not optimal, in fact far from optimal? I would suggest that a group of intelligent people with little exposure to our current educational systems, locked away in a room for a month or two, might, just might, come up with a radically improved model for Irish higher education. They might then be funded to establish an experimental third level institution. To avoid the trap of instant convergence to imagined norms, it might be best not to call it a University, but something else, say for example a “National Institute for Higher Education” (!)
Of course in the early 80s when NIHE (Dublin and Limerick) were first established we did just that – and our radical approach was a wake-up call to the Irish third level sector. Maybe we need to do that again.
Consider the seven Universities in the Republic of Ireland. There are all notionally “independent”, and all fiercely protective of that status. And yet they don’t act independently. I like to use the analogy of the chain-gang to describe the way in which they all shuffle together in the same direction, converging on the imagined promised land of “best practise”. Sometimes one of them will make a minor adjustment, which the others will rather reluctantly follow after a short delay. For example Trinity recently decided that all lecturers are in future are to be called Professors. This is by no means a radical move, as they are merely converging on the American norm. However expect the other Irish Universities to follow suit within a year or two.
It didn’t have to be that way. One just might have expected all of the Universities to act individually, to have all assumed radically different approaches to the challenges of higher education, to have leveraged their independence to the maximum. But they haven’t. Ask anyone what is the main distinguishing feature of each of our Universities in terms of how they approach the challenges of higher education, and nothing immediately springs to mind (of more substance than an advertising jingle). With talk of increased collaboration and even mergers, we can expect that trend to continue and to accelerate.
But what if the position we are converging on in ever smaller steps is not optimal, in fact far from optimal? I would suggest that a group of intelligent people with little exposure to our current educational systems, locked away in a room for a month or two, might, just might, come up with a radically improved model for Irish higher education. They might then be funded to establish an experimental third level institution. To avoid the trap of instant convergence to imagined norms, it might be best not to call it a University, but something else, say for example a “National Institute for Higher Education” (!)
Of course in the early 80s when NIHE (Dublin and Limerick) were first established we did just that – and our radical approach was a wake-up call to the Irish third level sector. Maybe we need to do that again.
