ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE AT THE USI CONFERENCE ON DISADVANTAGED ACCESS TO EDUCATION
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE AT THE USI CONFERENCE ON DISADVANTAGED ACCESS TO EDUCATION DUBLIN CASTLE – 11:00 A.M. ON 4TH
John Henry Newman, when speaking of the value of a university education said that “it requires a great deal of reading, or a wide range of information, to warrant us in putting forth our opinions on any serious subject; and without such learning the most original mind may be able indeed to dazzle, to amuse, to refute, to perplex, but not to come to any useful result or any trustworthy conclusion”. He goes on to say of those who shun education but openly air their views, that their “doctrines are mere theories . . they are chaff instead of bread”.
- In Newman’s time, an education was something which was beyond the reach of many, and primarily available to those who had the financial resources to engage private tutors, or to send their children to universities. As the ‘system’ of education progressed, it became more institutional and rigid and, for the vast majority of those of small means, was very limited in scope. Many could not hope to aspire to getting a full education – and quite a number could get no formal education whatsoever.
- Thankfully, in recent decades, much has been achieved in opening up education to a far wider catchment of people. I think of Seamus Heaney’s words, in his poem “From the Canton of Expectation”, where he describes the changes wrought when education became available to those whose destiny had been to be second best, and to make a virtue of stoically, even pathetically, putting up with it.
“... suddenly this change of mood.
Books open in the newly wired kitchens.
Young heads that might have dozed a life away against the flanks of milking cows were busy
paving and pencilling their first causeways
across the prescribed texts. The paving stones
of quadrangles came next and a grammar
of imperatives, the new age of demands.”
They would banish the conditional for ever
this generation born impervious to
the triumph in our cries of de profundis.
Our faith in winning by enduring most,
they made anathema, intelligences
brightened and unmannerly as crowbars.
What looks the strongest has outlived its term.
The future lies with what's affirmed from under."
- Seamus Heaney speaks about the generation that gained access to education; that could at last, “dig” as he did “with the pen” – or the computer, the mechanical digger. That ‘revolution’ that he speaks about, was mirrored here, where a whole new world of opportunity was opened up to a generation emerging from the economic and cultural turmoil of the 2nd World War; where it was possible at last to break out of the confinement of economic repression; and where people could be participants, rather than onlookers, in the emerging post-war world. That quiet revolution has unlocked the cycle of repression and stagnation and is now reflected in the modern dynamic Ireland where industry and agriculture have been transformed – where there is a self-confidence among our young educated people who are willing to take risks and willingly taking us to the future.
- As one who was involved in education, I know only too well of the importance of education at a young age - for what is learnt in childhood is engraved on stone. And, as Newman said, “Memory is one of the first developed of the mental faculties”. Unfortunately, there are those who have ability – who have drive and ambition – but who can all too easily locked out of the formal education system by their circumstances.
- The advances made by Governments and by the educational institutions in recent decades have greatly helped to redress that situation. They have provided an opportunity to increase equality of access and participation for those groups hitherto under-represented in higher education – the sons and daughters of the unemployed, of manual and unskilled workers, and of those from troubled homes. The free second level education system, along with other measures - such as additional student places, means-tested grants, and more recently, free university fees - have given many people that initial break – that spark of ignition – that has allowed them to be full participants in the economic and cultural life of this or their adopted country.
- Higher education colleges have been developing programmes designed to build links with second-level schools in their catchment area. By providing academic support, supervised study and other practical help, they are assisting students to enter higher education, and by providing academic supports in the third-level environment as well, they help to ensure successful completion of courses. Some colleges aim to provide additional finance to such students as top-up to the Higher Education Grants Scheme. And at least one college has made free or subsidised accommodation available on campus to a quota of such students. These are the kind of imaginative and innovative approaches which deserve careful evaluation with a view to future mainstreaming.
- Apart from school-leavers there are also many “second chance” mature students - those who left school early in the past, those who want to acquire the type of skills to make them economically self-sufficient in the new marketplace, women who have raised families and now want to pick up their education again – these are all important categories to be catered for. Their requirements are different from those of a school-leaver. They come with skills and experiences accumulated over time. Responding to their needs is a big challenge for institutions whose expertise is in the teaching and learning of young people.
- A whole range of factors – culture, motivation, peer expectations, role models - come together to make the phenomenon of under-representation. Intervention strategies and measures need to recognise all these dimensions - measures such as reducing numbers leaving school prematurely; tackling under-achievement; and support for those who reach the academic requirement but who for financial or cultural reason are deterred from going on to higher education.
- While inequality has been reduced over the past 15 years or so, the various categories of manual workers and some categories of non-manual workers continue to be seriously under-represented. There are those who are still repressed by family or economic circumstance – who perhaps live in a home where their interests have to take second place to the basic requirement of survival – those who live with violence, alcoholism, abuse or hostility – those who live in homes where there is no book on the shelf, no stories of adventure to whet the appetite - nothing to open the mind - they may be caught up in a cycle of repression and deprivation that continues to block their route to the freedom of education. These are the ones that need the liberation of a flexible education system that can mould to meet their requirements rather than impose organisational strictures - which can too easily become barriers to an escape from that stagnant existence. They must not be made to suffer the double deprivation of poverty and poor education.