'Danger' in male attitudes to further education

THE DECLINE in the proportion of male students in third level education was raised at the Parnell summer school yesterday.

Registrar and deputy president of NUI Galway Prof Jim Ward said there was "something dangerous" about the attitude of boys which had led to a situation whereby an average of 60 per cent of entrants at third level were girls, with the trend growing.

The male attitude in schools to further education as being "studious and nerdy" was not acceptable and was leading to poor Leaving Certificates. "These are the sorts of questions we should be examining but I don't think we are at the moment," he said.

Prof Tom Dunne of University College Cork, and a former member of the NUI Senate, said that if a meaningful role for the Senate was not developed there was a danger it would be "allowed wither on the vine, a travesty of a federal university". This would be "a sad end to a century of significant achievement".

Recollecting that then taoiseach Bertie Ahern had said last October that the NUI Senate's objectives were "as relevant today as they were at its foundation", Prof Dunne said the truth of this depended "above all, on the attitude of the universities, and especially their presidents".

Commenting on the "new type of president" at the universities, he said they were "chosen not solely on academic criteria, but because of links to business, or the ability to raise significant funding. Their ambition was to make their institutions 'world class', even if that was to be at the expense of other universities in the NUI family . . . their instinct appeared competitive rather than collaborative".

They used "the language of the marketplace rather than the language of the university . . . Their focus was more and more elsewhere, and some of them made no secret of their impatience with the NUI and rarely attended meetings," he said.

HEA chief executive Tom Boland wondered at "the relative silence from university presidents on issues other than resourcing".

There were "other social and civic issues which could be a major source of intellectual activity. Perhaps they are overworked?"