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Abstract
This article offers a review of the DARE as it operated in University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland from 2010 to 2013. This DARE scheme allows applicants to provide details of their disability and its impact on their education, with a view to competing for specially allocated places on their programme of choice, should they not receive an offer of a place based on the merit of their Leaving Certificate Second Level examination results. This article provides an overview of the DARE scheme and a detailed analysis of the profile of students who applied and were eligible for the DARE scheme, and accepted a place in UCD, between 2010 and 2013. It details how these students have progressed and how their educational outcomes compare to that of the general student body as well as making recommendations for the improvement of the scheme.
Acknowledgement
There was no research funding for this study, and no restrictions have been imposed on free access to, or publication of, the research data.
Notes
1. The Bologna Process was launched in 1999 with the aim of creating a European Higher Education Area. For more information on the objectives of the Bologna Process see http://www.ehea.info/.
2. For more information on the policy context of the DARE scheme see Byrne, Aedín, Sweetman, Casey, & David, Citation2013, pp. 31–53.
3. DARE is for School Leavers or applicants under 23 years as of the 1 January on the year of application.
4. There is a significant gap in enrolment and participation/engagement for students with disabilities in third-level education (Sachs & Schreuer, Citation2011). In data analysis conducted by Jones (Citation2010), people with disabilities were shown to be two and half times less likely to have an educational qualification than those who did not report a disability.
5. The Leaving Certificate Applied is a vocational programme which can be taken instead of the traditional Leaving Certificate exams. This programme aims to prepare students for working life and offers vocational subjects which do not form part of the traditional Leaving Certificate. Students who have taken the Leaving Certificate Applied programme cannot matriculate in higher education intuitions without undertaking a further programme of study.
6. The Fund for Students provides funding to students with a disability attending courses in third level institutions and, since 1998, in Post Leaving Certificate Centres. Students attending approved courses in Northern Ireland, the U.K, and the EU are also eligible to apply to the Fund. This Fund is administered by the National Office for Equity of Access to Higher Education with the HEA.
The purpose of the scheme is to provide students with a disability assistance and equipment to enable them to access, to participate and to complete their course of study. The fund is for a person with a disability who has specific support needs (http://www.hea.ie/en/policy/national-access-office/investment-in-access).
7. England 8%, Scotland 4.8%, Wales 8.3%, Northern Ireland 4.5%.
8. For more information on the Australian scheme please see the University Admissions Centre – http://www.uac.edu.au/eas/.
9. A 2009 International Literature Review commission by the National Counsel for Special Education noted that more work needs to be done on collating exact figures and data on children/students with visual impairments as many may not be known to visiting teachers who work with students with disabilities/visual impairments (Douglas et al., Citation2009).
10. See AHEAD. Seeing Ahead: a study of the factors affecting blind and vision impaired students going on to higher education (Dublin: AHEAD, Citation2008). This study points to the need for improved teaching techniques for the effective inclusion of children with visual impairments in mainstream education.
11. HEAR (Higher Education Access Route) works in a similar way to DARE and sets out to improve equality of access for students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds who are traditionally under-represented in Higher Education in Ireland.
12. DEIS stands for Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools and represents a plan launched by the Irish government in 2005 for prioritising the educational needs of children and young people from disadvantaged communities. A standardised system was established to identify schools that would participate in DEIS and would qualify for resources according to the degree of disadvantage experienced by the Department of Education and Skills (http://www.education.ie/en/Schools-Colleges/Services/DEIS-Delivering-Equality-of-Opportunity-in-Schools-/).
13. HEA, ‘2012/13 Statistics’, 2013, www.hea.ie/en/statistics; AHEAD, ‘Numbers of Students with Disabilities Studying in Higher Education in Ireland 2012/13’, 2013. AHEAD, the AHEAD, is an independent organisation which aims to promote access to and participation in further and higher education for students with disabilities and to enhance their employment opportunities after they graduate. www.ahead.ie.
14. Merit offers refer to the fact that the student received the required CAO points for their course based on their Leaving Certificate results and did not require a points reduction.
15. Without further data on these students’ course preferences we cannot draw the conclusion that students with Specific Learning Difficulties required reduced points offers while those with Significant Ongoing Illnesses were more likely to get the CAO points required for their chosen course. It may be the case that those students receiving a merit offer simply did not get enough points to compete for a reduced points place on another course or that they did compete for one of these places unsuccessfully.
16. For the purpose of this article, we will refer to the achievement of 60 credits across two semesters as ‘normal progression’. Students can progress to stage two from stage one if they achieve 50 credits. However, this would usually mean they would have to repeat/resit 10 credits – typically two 5 credit modules.
17. A number of additional students did progress past stage one although they had to repeat failed modules or take up additional modules to make up the required credits.
18. 2011:60% of students on reduced points places achieve normal progression compared to 56% of those who received merit offers. 2012: 71% of students on reduced points places achieved normal progression compared to 64% of those who received merit offers.
19. 2011: DARE students – 67%, all UCD students – 78.8%. 2012:DARE students – 72.2%, all UCD students – 78.4%.
20. Pass by Compensation involved a student’s performance in a stage being reviewed by the Programme Examination Board to see if it could compensate for any modules the student may have failed with an E grade. Where compensation was allowed, E grades were converted to Pass by Compensation and did not have to be repeated. Compensation occurred when a student had obtained passing grades in 75% or more of the total needed to complete the stage; and a compensation GPA of 2.0 or more. http://www.ucd.ie/registry/academicsecretariat/asug/compensation/.
21. A student is said to be carrying modules when they have progressed to the next stage of their degree programme but have not completed and passed all of the modules in the previous stage. Those modules which the student is ‘carrying’ must be completed in order for the student to complete their degree programme. This can significantly add to a student’s workload as they will have additional assessments to complete while managing the full workload for their subsequent stage.