Women better educated than men, but lose out in research
Tuesday September 26 2006
"One of the great failures, to date, in the Irish higher education system is our inability to attract more female researchers," says Professor Ciaran Murphy from UCC.
As well as beating the males in Junior and Leaving Cert exams, females do better in most areas of higher education, according to a survey carried out for the Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC).
At undergraduate level the female/male enrolment ratio is 59:41, females also get 54.7pc of the first-class and two-thirds of the second-class honours degrees.
But when it comes to full-time research masters and PhD programmes the picture is different with males dominating by 54pc to 46pc.
"A significant contributory factor to this is that much of the funding for PhD research has focused on narrow science and engineering areas which do not attract females in reasonable numbers," said Prof Murphy who has announced funding of €20,000 per year for PhD graduates taking a new doctorial programme in Business Information Systems (BIS).
He believes the new BIS PhD programme in UCC, centred on significant information and management issues in business, will attract both female and male students.
"This is the first of what will become a standard module of PhD programmes, where students take two years of course work, followed by two years of research," he said.
Studies
"This structured and developmental-focused programme is based on the US approach to PhD studies.
"Two objectives of the programme are to produce R & D work that is relevant to Irish and international businesses and to attract a more females to research," Prof Murphy said.
Meanwhile, preliminary results of a survey on research skills needs shows that Institutes of Technology are well equipped to support students in their ambitions to continue with their studies at Masters and PhD levels in their home institute.
- John Walshe
