Dublin: Dysfunctional city, divided knowledges

1
Dublin Dysfunctional city, divided knowledges

• James Wickham
• Symposium on learning cities
• Dortmund
• 1 April 2004

2
Outline

• Education and the Celtic Tiger
• A powerless city
• Divided city, divided knowledge
• Paradoxes

3
The tiger Irish and EU unemployment
4
Causes of the Celtic Tiger

• Boston or Berlin?
• US high tech investment
• EU transfers
• Other issues
• financial stabilisation
• demography
• social partnership
• and education.

5
The best education system in Europe

• High third level participation
• Useful third level education
• Competitive entry (not Italy,France)
• Limited research and/or postgraduate
• No Life Long Learning
• High functional illiteracy
• Not like Finland

6
Dublin powerless city

• History (1) Not trusting the natives
• History (2) Post-colonial corruption
• Governance structure
• Four local authorities for city area
• No regional government
• An example transport

7
Knowing nothing about knowing

• Third level
• Two international universities
• two city universities
• other third level colleges
• Local education as administration
• No educational policy
• Dublin Learning Initiative
• first all sector educational grouping
• founded two years ago

8
Divided knowledges

• Elite access to higher education
• Spatial segregation
• High failure rates

9
Conclusions Paradoxes

• Economic growth does not depend on extensive
  knowledge
• Local based initiatives do exist