Universities offering places for lower income students
Tuesday December 7th 2004
UP to 800 children of medical card holders would be guaranteed university places on lower points under a new €50m proposal unveiled yesterday.
If the Government agrees to finance the plan, the universities will instruct the Central Applications Office (CAO) to reserve up to 5pc of places each year for students who are exempt from paying fees to sit the Leaving Certificate. These are students from families holding medical cards.
The plan was drawn up by the Conference of Heads of Irish Universities, whose spokesperson, Prof Jim Browne said that the 800 places would be in addition to those available to students coming through on existing access programmes.
It was presented to a conference in Kilkenny organised by the Higher Education Authority. The universities' scheme would be open to children who are exempt from paying Leaving Certificate fees in any school, not just those schools officially designated as disadvantaged.
Prof Browne said the universities did not have the competence to define exactly who disadvantaged students were. However, they were willing to adopt the criterion used by the Department of Education and Science, which decided that children of medical card holders were exempt from paying Leaving Cert fees.
It was not a perfect scheme and if the Department introduced a better system, the universities would be happy to follow it.
What was envisaged was that applicants could state on their CAO forms if they were exempt from exam fees. If the CAO applicants were not offered a place on standard entry points, additional places would be reserved for them on lower points.
The lower points threshold would vary from course to course but could drop by 100 points or more. "We would have to define a level guaranteeing students a good chance of success".
The plan was first discussed in the context of former Minister Noel Dempsey's campaign to increase access to college for disadvantaged students. The funding sought is of the order of €6500 per place to pay for the additional support needed.
Prof Browne, deputy president NUI Galway, who made the proposal public for the first time yesterday, said the universities were awaiting a response from the Department.
He said that university presidents had approved the proposal, which was drawn up after much internal discussion. He heads up the University Registrars' group on access and worked on the proposal with UCC Prof Aine Hyland, who chairs the national committee on disadvantage.
Prof Browne told the HEA organised conference that what was proposed was a review of admissions policy to support those with potential as well as those with achievement.
Ms Mary Hanafin told the Kilkenny conference that in order to fully address equity of access to higher education, effective interventions had to be in place as early as possible in the education life-cycle.
"We need to make meaningful progress in advancing participation in higher education among socio-economically disadvantaged school leavers, mature students, students with a disability, members of the traveling community and ethnic minorities," added the Minister.
John Walshe
Education Editor
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