Back to school with a bag of books?

School is back and we have another of the perennial education debates. This one is about school books. The government has abolished the school book grant for most schools and parents are again complaining (and rightly so) about the cost of books and the changing of curricula so books cannot be passed on. Most homes in Ireland have a computer of some kind. Most children have a Gameboy or something similar in addition to a mobile phone and an MP3 player. Is it not well past the time when schools moved into the 21st century and books were produced in digital form so that they could be stored on a digital device? Could home work not be done on a computer and emailed to the teacher? One of the biggest educational software companies in the world, Riverdeep (http://web.riverdeep.net/), is based in Dublin. Commission them to design a digital education system.

When we had the funds we should have invested in our education system instead of big motorways that are mostly empty. Broadband is (are) the motorways of the future and most children are more than comfortable using digital technology. So it is there we should be investing. It is not too late to start and evidence has shown that investing in education more than repays itself. Lets soon see the day when instead of a school bag pupils will go to school with a notebook and a folder of CDRoms. While I think of it why go to school? Go to your room boot up, log on and start learning!

NAMA

Today 46 economists wrote about their concerns about NAMA in the Irish Times and the Minister for Finance's chief economic advisor answered them. I had the feeling of being a medieval peasant looking into to the runes while the local wizard gave his interpretation of what they meant. There is no doubt that the banks are in dire straits and that something needs to be done. However the people (economists) who a few short years ago were extolling the virtues of the free market are partly responsible for getting us into this mess are now offering us advice about how to get us out it. In the general population there are a reasonable amount of left wing people but amongst the legions of economists a left winger is as difficult to find as hens teeth. This says to me that economics is by and large not particularly scientific but an ideologically driven view of the world. If that view of the world contributed to the mess we are in then I am not reassured that it will get us out of it. At best it might bring us back to square one and that square will be a long way back. Maybe what we need are some views coming literally and metaphorically from the left field. Remember the days when they would send for the men in the white coats if you suggested nationalising the banks and now such bedfellows as Davy Stockbrokers and the International Monetary Fund are suggesting that we should consider that as an option.

I once asked a prominent Irish academic what would people in 200 years time think bizarre and strange about our current beliefs and he instantly shot back 'Economics. It's the astrology of the 21st century' . Time to move on to astronomy.