TCD International Conference on Business and Higher Education Working Together to Widen Access to University

Posted on: 30 March 2007

“Higher education access programmes are operating on uncertain year-to-year funding for the past decade. In order to make a real impact and sustainable commitment to schools, communities and students from lower-income groups, access programmes urgently need a long-term funding model.” These were the views of the Head of Trinity Access Programmes, Cliona Hannon, speaking at the TCD international symposium on business and higher education collaborating to widen access to university for students from under-represented socio-economic groups on March 29th last.

The two-day conference, Mission Possible! Business and Higher Education Working Together to Widen Access, organised by Trinity College with assistance from the Goldman Sachs Foundation, showcased some of the productive partnerships between universities and partners from the corporate sectors, both nationally and internationally, with examples from the US and the UK. The conference included more than 30 speakers from the educational, corporate and philanthropic sector from Ireland and overseas.

“High levels of inequality in access to higher education persist. International and Irish evidence demonstrates that it is possible to make progress in increasing participation among students from under-represented socio-economic groups,” stated UCD’s Associate Professor of Sociology, Professor Patrick Clancy and author of a series of national studies on participation in higher education published by the Higher Education Authority at the conference.

“It is clear however, that some countries are more successful than others in achieving this. It therefore behoves us as a country to learn from international experience and to be willing to borrow best practice from those countries which appear to have devised the most successful policies. Policies which focus on achieving high rates of second level completion and those which offer second chance opportunities to mature students are especially significant,” continued Professor Clancy.

“Government has been supporting higher education access programmes for the past ten years and while there has been increased participation by these students from lower income groups, we face significant future challenges,” said the TCD Provost, Dr John Hegarty.

“Challenges include the need for a long-term funding model of access programmes; the requirement by the Higher Education Authority that access programmes seek at least 30% of its funding elsewhere (70% funding is provided by the HEA) and the need to engage with the corporate sector in order to do this; and the need for a consolidated source of student maintenance funding, instead of the current fragmented sources of funding (local authority grant, the millennium fund, the student assistance fund and top-up-grant),” continued the Head of TAP, Cliona Hannon.

“Finally there is only a certain amount that higher education can do to increase participation rates. There is also much needed intervention in the wider education sector in order to provide adequate resources and support structures for both students and teachers at primary and second level.

“The Trinity Access Programme which has been tackling educational disadvantage for the past 14 years, and which is currently supporting 430 students in Trinity College could not operate its current programmes without much needed additional financial support from the corporate sector.

“While public funding has been invaluable in establishing the access programmes, the corporate sector has enabled the programmes to grow and to innovate. Business has worked with us, engaging directly with us in TAP projects. Without the corporate sector’s influence, the TCD primary schools link programme (comprising 20 schools) would be very restricted and our foundation course students would have no source of student maintenance funding. It is a precarious balance between state and private funding and a very uncertain landscape to navigate year to year,” concluded the TCD Head of TAP.

Nick Sparrow, the Director of the Trinity Foundation which raises funds to support Trinity College Dublin, outlined how the Foundation had developed the philanthropic market to the benefit of the Trinity Access Programme: “The Trinity Access Programme’s annual budget is €2million, €1million of which is for operational costs and another €1million is for student support funding. Trinity is currently securing 50% of the overall TAP budget in public funding (Higher Education Authority, Department of Education and Science and the European Social Fund), and the remainder from corporate sources. The scope and ambition of the Trinity Access Programme would be much more limited without this additional private support.”

“There is, however, a need for a cohesive vision of what roles the state, corporate sector, foundations and individuals together should have on the philanthropy stage. Philanthropy is relatively new in Ireland and the models to support philanthropy need to be developed. In particular it is important that philanthropy should not compensate for the State’s role in funding third level education for all sections of society. Philanthropy is at its best when it assumes a supportive role to new initiatives,” said the Trinity Foundation director.

Dr Freda Donoghue, Senior Research Fellow, of the Centre for Non-Profit Management, TCD and author of the recent national survey of the Irish non-profit sector gave an overview of philanthropy in Ireland. She stated that corporate donations were very low, comprising just 0.04% of companies’ pre-tax turnover well below the level of corporate donations in either Britain or the US. Of non-profit sector organisations surveyed by Dr Donoghue in 2005, corporate donations formed 1.4% of their income, just €26 million, while private donations, comprising foundations and individuals, made up €201 million or 10.5% of the sector’s income. Expenditure on education from these donations, both private and corporate, has been relatively high.