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IRISH THIRD-LEVEL students are twice as likely to be from affluent backgrounds than disadvantaged ones, according to a new report by the Higher Education Authority.
The study, a socioeconomic profile of Ireland’s student body, highlights the gap between Ireland’s rich and poor when it comes to participation in and progress through the higher education system.
It reveals that some 20% of students are from the most affluent parts of the country compared to just 10% from the most disadvantaged.
Those contrasts are more pronounced in colleges in Dublin and Cork compared to regional institutions and ITs in other parts of the country.
Using a deprivation index score, the study reveals that Trinity College Dublin (36%), University College Dublin (35%) and the Royal College of Surgeons (33%) have the highest shares of affluent students among all third-level institutions in the State.
But at 5%, these three colleges have the joint lowest share of disadvantaged students.
Meanwhile, at 25% of its student population, Letterkenny IT has the highest concentration of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, compared with 10% nationwide.
The figures are strongly influenced by geographic considerations and catchment areas.
Donegal, for example, comprises some of the most deprived local electoral areas in the country, according to 2016 census data, while Dublin contains the most wealthy.
But the report also reveals stark contrasts within the system itself.
Students from wealthier backgrounds dominate high-points courses such as medicine and law. By contrast, just 4% of medical students are from poorer parts of the country.
Disadvantaged students, meanwhile, are better represented in childcare and youth services, social work and sports-related courses.
Commenting on the release of the report, Dr Alan Wall, chief executive of the HEA, said that its findings show that more work has to be done to improve socioeconomic inclusiveness in Irish education.
“The higher education student population does not yet reflect the diversity found in the rest of the population in Ireland,” he said.
“This detailed dataset provides policy-makers and institutions with a comprehensive knowledge of patterns of access and disadvantage that will assist them in developing and implementing targeted approaches to advancing equity of access.”
Deprivation index
Based on admission figures from the 2018/19 academic year, the report uses Deprivation Index Scores (DIS) to profile the socioeconomic makeup of Ireland’s higher education student population.
It’s a measure of affluence or disadvantage in a given ‘small area’ within the country using 2016 census data from each individual local electoral area.
Rather than just focusing on income levels, the DIS takes into account a range of factors — dependency levels, employment rates etc — to arrive at a holistic profile of a given area.
HEA researchers then use these scores to analyse the socio-economic profile of the student body by institution and course, which are then given individual DI scores.
The lower the number, the higher the volume of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
When all Irish third-level institutions are taken together, the mean score is 2.2.
Letterkenny IT (-5.1); Waterford IT (-2.3); IT Carlow (-2.3); and IT Tralee (-2) have the four lowest scores.
Trinity (+5.7); RCSI (+5.7); and UCD (+5.6) scored the highest, indicating a higher proportion of students from affluent areas.
It’s the second annual report of its kind and provides a more accurate view than last year’s installment. In 2019, Trinity College declined to participate in the study, citing privacy concerns.
Researchers also believe it to be a more accurate information-gathering technique than the old Equal Access Survey (EAS), which relied on outdated information, for example, asking students to identify their father’s occupation.
Simon Harris, Minister for Higher Education, said that the study will be used to craft the government’s new National Access Plan for third-level education.
“This is a really valuable and important piece of work,” he said.
“We must ensure that our policies strengthen the participation of students in higher education and to do that, we need accurate data and evidence.
“This is the second year of such data collection and I believe it will be an excellent resource to us as we prepare our new National Access Plan. I want to thank the Higher Education Authority for its work on this report.”
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One optin is to tell the banks to sort out their own mess they got themselves into & give the taxpayers back the money theyve robbed from them. Not to mentin halving all government TD’s\Ministers\Assistants\etc etc salaries.
Unfortunately are bereft of ideas as to how best do this, or they would have mentioned them in Kennys statement. Notice how reluctant they are at really challenging the Banks to come up with some pain relief plan for themselves. mathew Elderfield thretened to do something and he was told, back off by the banks, so really we are were we are and people thought FF were bad!!! Taxpayers and other suffering will, under this administration (even if there is little alternative) suffer even more. Oh i hate doom and gloom!!!
@Alan – is there ANY alternative? Seriously? Special Needs Assistants, hospitals and schools, while just political ammunition to Adams, really could do with all that cash. Are the government doing the best of a bad deal, or could more be gained by doing as Adams says?
We are in the EU, it’s supposed to be a fair arrangement. Greece getting up to 60% off their debt is sending out the wrong message to Europe especially Ireland. If a similar deal isn’t struck for us then it’s time we rethink our membership in my opinion.
quite right
we would lose most of our trade as it’s all with EU countries, that would ruin the country even more!
We would be decimated without our inter-EU trade agreements! What a ill-thought out idea.
People in Europe (like elswhere around the globe) don’t buy from us because were in the EU, they buy from us because they either need or want our produce.
@ A Musgrave… China and India are not in the EU Dictatorship but they have the benefit of basically Free Trade with the EU, with no tarriffs on many goods and 3% on most of the rest, Free trade was the argument for us joining “the common market”, but the world trade agreements effectively done away with the reason we joined in the first place, We are in this mess because we gave away control of our own interest rates and control of our own currency, The EU as it stands and the Euro is destined to fail, you cannot have a common currency and not have the checks and balances which naturally regulate it and the economies which use it.
Basically the EU has to become all or nothing, Don’t think I want a United States of Europe! People fought for our Independance for a reason, it is sickening to see it being given away!
Hi A Musgrave…. I used to think the way you do but am beginning to wonder……………..
Whilst we have had a huge amount of grants etc down the years from the EEC/EC/EU I’m starting to wonder if we added it all up, would it total what we’ve lost in our fishing stocks for example?
Farmers have received CAP payments down the years, but when you see countries like Saudi Arabia, China etc buying HUGE swathes of agricultural land across Russia, South America, Africa, Australia to ensure they can feed their own increasing populations over the coming decades, then you have to note that agriculture i.e. food production will be a huge industry and we are well placed for that.
Remember also that our biggest trading partner is the UK and through negotiated trade agreements with them, we could have access to the Commonwealth nations.
We could still be a trading partner with Europe…. but the major upcoming world economies are the BRIC counties.
We’ve always been told about our “special relationship” with the US, because of English first language, education etc so no reason for that to change.
Also we could print our own cash… We could take control of our finances again. Didn’t Greenland leave?
also see how much of your taxes are going to the ECB now…..
http://bondwatchireland.blogspot.com/
If you totalled it all up I think you’d be horrified at how much membership of the EU is currently costing us
Stephen McLaughlin
India and China u said… how does a worker in Irelnad? minimum 8.75 phr! what about in india or china? E150 pa. that’s y talk talk and the others left ireland and that’s y these countries are dominating the world trade. capitalism talks everywhere!
So M. Martin is attacking/complaining? Wasn’t it the plonkers from his party that got us into that mess?
Remember the FG and Labour manifestos, the grand standing, putting a foot down, over our dead bodies rhetoric? All trashed now. Just another set of bait promises to hook the electorate. If Greece can achieve a colossal write down, the argument for Ireland demanding likewise is unassailable. Only the most perverse political masochism would demand even more sacrifices from citizens. The worry is that Kenny, Noonan and the boys will swallow the nonsense that the EU/ECB/IMF are actually ‘protecting’ Ireland by insisting it, the taxpayers, pay back every singe cent. Even a moneylender would blush before pushing that.
Where is our haircut?
I bet the ATM’s will still have cash when they do default. There’s another myth getting blown out of the water soon.
They had in Iceland.
It is the most inane argument I’ve ever heard. If I hear it threatened again I’ll throw my cushion at the telly.
fianna fail should keep quiet, its them tw*ts that got us into this mess in the first place
The EU will only act when they absolutly have no other option. The way they have handled the Greek crises shows this. I wouldnt expect any concessions any time soon.
We have already had a write-down of debt, in the form of interest rate reductions. We will get more similar write-downs. Morgan Kelly reckons we will eventually be given 50 years of finance at 2 percent or less. That seems more and more likely.
Is it desirable? Could we not leave the Euro and go back to the punt? Are there in fact any real alternatives?
It is possible to have more than one currency. It used to be quite common. Switzerland has had this for 80 years and are considering introducing a third.
Liberalising the issuance of currency wlll help mitigate against the collapse of the Euro.
http://www.feasta.org/2011/09/17/the-parallel-punt/
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