Who will benefit from Trinity College's decision to admit more students from 'non-traditional' backgrounds, and how are they chosen? Jean O'Mahony reports
Times are tough for our universities, but times are tougher for those outside them. This week, Trinity College Dublin (TCD) announced it will bring more "non-traditional" students in from the cold. From October, TCD will be reserving 15 per cent of first year undergraduate places for mature students, students with disabilities and socio-economically disadvantaged students. A grand departure? Perhaps; though it will come as no surprise to the Department of Education - all third-level institutions are under pressure to reach a national target of 20 per cent participation by non-traditional learners in higher education by 2007. So far, only NUI Maynooth has even come close.
Trish Callaghan, assistant academic secretary of TCD, is firm that this move is about "equity, not just some gesture towards the community". However she acknowledges hat there will be some anxiety "in terms of people being concerned that they have daughters and sons working very hard and, despite having the points, not able to get a place. This is not about displacing students, but admissions based on merit regardless of background. We know - society knows - that there are huge barriers in place for certain sections of society. All we can say to people who feel that they are displaced is that they have always competed with their own group."
"Non-traditional" students have been targeted for entry to TCD for the past decade, and they make up 7 per cent of the student body. Students entering the university via alternative routes include those on a modified points system where students from designated socially-disadvantaged schools are admitted at 10 to 20 per cent below the standard CAO entry level for that year, with a similar system for disabled students; students completing a Trinity Access Programme (TAP) Foundation course; and those eligible via the mature student application procedure, which includes a personal application and an interview with the department to which they are applying. TCD's initiative will institutionalise these existing procedures, and build on them to encompass other alternative competitive routes. In short, it will create a parallel admissions system where students will be admitted on merit on a competitive basis, but the competition will comprise students from a similar background.
So if the majority of current third-level students are "traditional" - a delicate euphemism for middle-class school-leavers - who exactly is standing on the other side of the railings?
The TAP has 11 years' experience dealing with educational disadvantage. According to its educational guidance and support tutor, Ray O'Neill, the non-traditional students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds are typically attending schools where higher level subjects are not available due to lack of demand, leaving students who have the ability to compete in the points race lagging far behind.
O'Neill, who taught in the Institute of Education for five years and who has "seen the calibre of students coming through - your 'traditional' students" - as well as that of TAP students, maintains the latter possess "equal ability, if not better ability because of the initiative they take on their own where they don't have the same financial support or social support from their families".
He maintains that, once in university, the lack of a "social network" makes their adjustment to college life tougher. For all official insistence on an already "diverse" student body, in economic terms university students are as homogenous as they were in the days of dinner party covenanting of each other's children for tax breaks.
One junior freshman student who entered TCD after completing the TAP foundation course was perplexed when a fellow student asked if she would be attending the "equestrian meet" that coming Saturday.
The casual inquiry begged several questions: what did "equestrian" mean, what on earth was an "equestrian meet", and, most importantly, was it part of her course? Convinced of the latter, she asked about the time and place of the "meet", only to be asked another question: what kind of horse did she have?
Andrew Flaherty is finishing his junior freshman year at TCD, having sat his Leaving Certificate at Old Bawn Community School in Tallaght in 2002. With English and History as a first choice, and an IT course at the Institute of Technology in Tallaght as his only CAO offer, this self-confessed computerphile was accepted on to the TAP foundation course for young adults, and from that into English and Film Studies. While most of his fellow students are "just cool, and going through the same transition", he does admit to encountering the occasional snob "who doesn't think that you have the right to be studying alongside them because they got 600 points in their Leaving Certificate". When his 280 points are greeted with an incredulous "Why the hell are you here?", he shrugs it off with a cool "I did an extra year in college, I got a 2.1 in my exams, I have every right to be here, and I'll probably end up beating you in the long run." The trick: "Shoot them down as quick as they try to stand up because TAP is an amazing programme."
"I won't have as much academic knowledge of opera or something," says Robert Donoghue, current TAP student and TCD Law hopeful, of his apprehension about having a cultural capital deficit compared to his "traditional" peers. When assured that the average Junior Freshman is decidedly lacking in this commodity, he laughingly acknowledges that he too may have some prejudices.
One prejudice that he is very keen to dispel, however, is that TCD's new initiative will displace "people who are working hard". Rather, "it is actually bringing people with disadvantage up to the level of people with advantage".
However there are other gaps in the system: TCD's new initiative highlights a curious anomaly in Government funding. TAP is funded directly by the Higher Education Authority, and is an indirect beneficiary of the government block grant given to the college. Thus, according to Cliona Hannon, TCD's access officer, TAP receives money to generate interest and prepare students for university, while the university is experiencing cutbacks to the support services that are essential to retaining the same students.
"Non-traditional" students are costly to support. According to Hannon, "students with disabilities and mature students returning to learning, all bring with them a variety of needs and so you need to have a diverse set of responses for a diverse student body, and to fund a diverse set of responses you need to have an adequate block grant." If TCD's application for funding is accepted, it can be presumed that this gap will be narrowed.
While a chill wind has blown over the university sector since the Minister for Education, Noel Dempsey, made it clear that its poor access records would have to be drastically improved, only the most cynical would make a link between the need for funding and the effort to attract students being targeted by that funding.
However, as Ray O'Neill retorts: "If one of the benefits is that the Government looks more favourably [on the university]: great; but the government set this bar, and TCD is rising to this bar, and I hope all other colleges do the same."