After Years in which it was pushed to the margins, the issue of access to third level has pushed its way right up the educational agenda.
At last, the Government has begun to sit up and take notice of the issue - but only after a plethora of reports highlighted the full extent of inequality at third level. More than £95 million over six years has been allocated to a third-level access fund which will tackle under-representation by three target groups:
students with disabilities;
students from disadvantaged backgrounds;
mature students.
Education minister Michael Woods has also established an action group to advise how the third-level sector can be opened up to every sector of Irish society.
The Higher Education Authority (HEA) has also stepped up the pressure - by asking the universities to report back on their equality strategies within six months.
There is still much to be done. The publication last week of the HEA report, The Social Background of Higher Education Entrants, reported some moderate progress but no radical change in the overall picture: higher education in this State remains dominated by the middle and upper classes.
According to Prof Pat Clancy, co-author of the report, the children of semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers accounted for less than 7 per cent of the intake into higher education in 1998.
Some progress is being made. Backed by Government funding, the universities and the various institutes of technology (ITs) have all appointed or are about to appoint access officers. These will be working to ensure much better access for all, including disadvantaged, disabled and mature students and those from ethnic minorities and religions.
Access programmes for the disadvantaged usually take two forms, according to a recent report for the HEA by Prof Bob Osborne. One targets school-going youngsters. The other focuses on mature students who failed to reach their potential at school.
Many of the programmes offer top-up grants to participants taking up third-level places. The effectiveness of these programmes is a major issue for both educators and policy makers. The number of schools and students taking part in the programmes remains relatively small. While there can be no doubting the commitment of individual access officers, the true extent of an institution's commitment to widening access is hard to gauge. The concern is, that in some cases, they are no more than conscience-salving exercises.
Osborne highlights the lack of debate on access within the universities. "It is not clear that all universities have established access programmes after full internal discussion and debate," the report notes. UCD is the only university to hold regular seminars for staff in order to increase understanding. Osborne argues that a member of staff in every department in every institution should have an access remit.
Many observers also stress the need for a national co-ordinated approach: otherwise we could have turf wars as access officers from various colleges work in the same communities.
The failure to define precisely was is meant by the term disadvantage is another problem. How do you decide who is need of extra educational and financial supports to enable them to take up third-level places? Do you judge by their schools, parental employment categories or their postal addresses? Dr Caroline Hussey, UCD's registrar, is concerned that unless a definition of the term is agreed upon, access programmes could become discredited. "The Minister needs to agree with the universities the definition of disadvantage," she insists. The top-up fees paid to students who come in on access programmes and the direct-entry system which bypasses the CAO could become controversial if the scheme fails to be anything other than transparent, she warns.
UCD currently works with urban schools that are designated disadvantaged. However, if the college moves into rural schools (as the HEA would like, she says), they will almost certainly encounter some relatively well-off people who may benefit from the programmes. "We don't have the competency or the equipment to make judgments," she notes.
Pat O'Connor, headmaster of St Enda's Community School, Limerick, runs one of the State's longest running access programmes, the Limerick Community Based Educational Initiative (LCBEI), which is based in the parish of Southill. A recent evaluation of the programme shows that of the 94 students who have participated in the scheme since 1990, 36 have completed third level and 33 are still enrolled on college courses.
According to O'Connor, it's vital that access programmes are located in the communities rather than in designated schools. If you concentrate on individual schools, he says, the better-off in schools that have mixed socio-economic intakes will inevitably benefit. By working in a community and offering community-based supports to second- and third-level students, the whole community benefits, he argues.
"The issue is whether access programmes are going to be integrated into an all-over scheme in an area. Are communities going to be designated for support or is it going to be done by cherry-picking the best students?"
O'Connor fears that if the Government decides that access programmes should be based only in the universities and ITs, other disadvantaged students - who go on to senior colleges and PLCs for example - will lose out. "Colleges have got to work together to divide communities so that they're not trampling the same ground and leaving the rest untouched," he stresses. "If you simply target schools," says Prof Kevin Ryan, UL's vice-president academic, "you will end up giving another subsidy to the middle class. If you take an area-based approach you can be pretty sure that everyone you're dealing with suffers from deprivation."
Getting people into college is one thing, keeping them there is quite another. Ongoing supports for the targeted groups are vital. The continued presence of fees for part-time courses is also widely regarded as a major deterrent to people from marginalised and minority groups taking up third-level courses.
