OK, I intend to write a book. There I said it, so I'll have to do it.

I intend to write a book called "What's wrong with Higher Education"!  I don't consider myself a writer.  I'd like to consider myself a doer, but in truth I'm just a lazy engineer.  That has served me well enough as, throughout my career, I have always looked for the most efficient way of achieving whatever task was in front of me.  Finding the most efficient way to do things did not always save me time, but it was much more fun.  

A downturn in the construction industry had me stumbling into higher education in the early eighties, where I had no intention of staying.  However, among other things, the autonomy of the lecturing job was wonderful, and so I never left.

However, I was surprised to find that most of my colleagues did not share my joy in implementing new ways of doing things.  This was not an issue when I was purely responsible for my own teaching, but as I took on responsibilities for institutional innovation, I began to see, not only the general resistance to innovation, but the extent to which inefficient and often perverse practices were common through our institution, as well as most other similar institutions and even external organisations controlling or influencing our operation.

Over time, I also began to realise how complex higher education is, with a huge number of variables and a large number of stakeholders, mostly (naturally) acting in their own interests.  I have felt for some time that I may not be qualified to write about higher education (no, not because I don't have a PhD) because it is so complex, but I have come to the conclusion that nobody really fully understands higher education and my particular perspective may be useful for those who are in different roles.

I have also observed that my general position, that higher education is highly dysfunctional and should either radically reinvent itself or else gently (or maybe not so gently) contract, is not common in educational circles around the world, and almost non-existent in Ireland.  That's my motivation for writing.

I'm not a researcher either, although I appreciate good research.  So the book will be largely opinion informed by experiences and attempts to overcome my own confirmation bias by wide reading.  I hope to develop the book by blogging the ideas and getting feedback to modify my position where my reasoning is weak or where there is evidence to the contrary.

So now that I've said that I'll do it, I have to.  Your feedback is welcome. And the more feedback the better so please share if you think this could be interesting or useful.