[Article] College dreams become reality

I received this in my inbox awhile ago and thought people might be interested in reading it, in case you missed it

Sunday Business Post 02/09/2007

www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=NEWS+FEATURES-qqqm=nav-qqqid=26285-qqqx=1.asp


College dreams become reality



Funds are being put aside to help disadvantaged students to attain third-level education.

For some of the almost 54,000 students who recently received their Leaving Certificate results, going to college may seem like a distant dream.

Regardless of their academic results, other barriers - whether financial, cultural or social - prevent many students from progressing. In 2003, the National Office for Equity of Access to Higher Education was established within the Higher Education Authority (HEA).

The HEA’s access office develops and implements policies to increase the participation of certain groups in the third-level sector. These groups include socially disadvantaged students, students with disabilities, mature students and other groups, such as members of the travelling community and foreign students.



The office also allocates or advises on the allocation of student and institutional funding to support access to third-level education among the target groups. Under the previous and current national development plans, large investments have been made in student support and third-level access measures to tackle social inclusion through education.

Orla Christle, a senior policy analyst with the HEA’s access unit, said that the level of resources available for the target groups had grown significantly in recent years. In 2000/2001, €1.2 million was allocated to 512 students with a disability. By 2006/2007, this had grown to more than €9.9 million, allocated to 2,444 students.

Christle said that HEA-funded institutions targeted specific schools to make contact with disadvantaged students while they were still at second level. However, rigorous pre-entry measures were essential to creating wider access to education, she said.

The Department of Education identifies schools with a disadvantage under a social inclusion schemes titled Delivering Equality Of Opportunity In Schools. It provides a standardised system for ‘‘identifying and regularly reviewing levels of disadvantage’’ in the school system.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said there were 873 designated disadvantaged schools nationwide, with 670 primary schools and 203 post-primary schools. He said this represented about 20 per cent of all schools.

Schools identified under the department scheme are linked with a third-level institution. The Higher Education Access Route (HEAR) helps school leavers from schools linked to the access programmes at one of seven listed third-level institutions to apply for reserved places.

The participating higher education institutions -Dublin City University, Dublin Institute of Technology, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork, University College Dublin and the University of Limerick - set aside a number of places each year for applicants under the HEAR scheme.

The scheme targets students who have the ability to fully participate in higher education but who, for a variety of social and economic reasons, are underrepresented at third level.

A range of situations are considered when determining eligibility, including long-term unemployment, low family income, and the lack of a family tradition of progression to third-level education.

Under the HEAR scheme, students must meet the minimum entry requirements, but they cannot always be guaranteed entry at this level. They can apply to the HEAR scheme via a common application, which is accepted by all seven participating institutions, and must include a copy of their CAO form with their application.

At NUI Maynooth, the Maynooth Access Programme (MAP) focuses on under-represented groups in third level. These groups include underrepresented school-leavers, mature students, students with disabilities, Travellers and refugees.

Ann O’Brien, the access officer at NUI Maynooth, said the programme had been operating since 1998, although support structures existed for students before then. Up to the end of the last academic year, there had been about 100 graduates from the programme.

O’Brien said the establishment of the programme had formalised the support network for minority students at the university. For example, there are 130 students with disabilities in NUI Maynooth, and 50 students with disabilities have graduated to date, with the support of MAP.

The support structures in place at NUI Maynooth include a bursary of up to €1,500 per student, in addition to traditional grant options, and book vouchers. The college is running a residential orientation programme next week for the 96 students entering the college this year from underrepresented groups.

O’Brien said 46 of these students had less than the advertised points for their chosen course. Other students may have secured the points required for the course, but are still eligible for MAP’s support due to their personal circumstances.

Across the higher education institutions, the term ‘‘access officer’’ has can have a different meaning. Some, such as NUI Maynooth and UCD, have an overall access officer who oversees all the programmes related to under-represented student groups.

Others, such as DIT and Trinity, have a number of interlinked offices providing support for different student groups. In these colleges, the access officer tends to refer to the person who coordinates the programme aimed at students from disadvantaged communities.

Students from under-represented groups at UCC have been able to avail of a support network since 1997. Olive Byrne, the access officer at UCC, said a new director of access would start work at the college this week.

The new role will act as an umbrella for Byrne’s access office, which provides support for students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and UCC’s support services for students with disabilities and mature students.

Byrne said that more than 500 students had graduated to date from UCC’s access programme. She said students who wished to enter the programme were assessed on economic grounds, parental occupation and financial circumstances.

She added that UCC reserved 15 per cent of all undergraduate places for students from under-represented groups, with about 5 per cent of these being set aside for students with a socio-economic disadvantage.

‘‘The achievements of students entering the programme may have been compromised by their personal circumstances,” Byrne said.

However, students who enter college via the HEAR route and who may not meet the minimum points for their chosen course were usually well able to compete with other students, according to Byrne. She said the students were highly motivated and wanted to succeed.

UCC provides bursaries of up to €2,000 for students from under-represented groups. It also provides a drop-in service where students can call by with problems or concerns.

Julie Bernard is the access officer at DIT. Since 2000, some 550 students have passed through the DIT access programme. She said that up to 150 places a year, which equates to roughly 5 per cent of the undergraduate intake at DIT, were set aside for access students.

Bernard said the pre-entry elements of the access programme were key to its success. DIT runs a number of pre-entry initiatives, including a shadowing programme for second level students in linked schools and a culinary arts programme for transition-year pupils.

Trinity College’s access programme has 440 students within the college. Kathleen O’Toole, the acting access officer at Trinity, said 140 offers had been made to students for direct entry to undergraduate programmes, via the HEAR scheme.

As with other colleges, Trinity reserves about 15 per cent of all undergraduate places for under-represented students.

While much is being done to increase participation in education among non-traditional students, there are more issues to be tackled, according to Orla Christle.

She said more flexibility needed to be introduced to accommodate mature students, although the number of mature students - which means students over 23 on entry to third level - has more than doubled since 1998. Last year, one in ten students was a mature entrant, up from 4.5 per cent in 1998.