Tomas Sullivan
In recent years this country, this city, and this university have identified education as both what makes us distinctive and unique, and as the area where we excel the most. Many of us have marched against and opposed cuts to education as well as opposing fees. Masters of language like Wilde, Joyce and Beckett are some of our greatest national, not just cultural, heroes. Remember also that Beckett’s name hasn’t just been given to a theatre, but also a harp shaped bridge over the liffey. We tend to think of writers as born geniuses, but these illustrious people were all highly educated intellectuals.
Yet Ireland’s literacy rate is one of the lowest in Europe, as is overall investment in education. Inequality still reigns in our education system. We all know fee-paying schools have fed universities for years. Michael King, an economics lecturer, who founded Suas, the educational volunteering organisation, as a student, points out that free fees have not significantly changed the socio-economic background of those attending university. But Michael believes that students can make a difference.
‘While a comprehensive response to educational inequality should be multifaceted and begin at pre-primary level and before, the problem of educational disadvantage in Ireland and abroad, can be tackled in part by Trinity students in the form of volunteering.’ He tells the University Times.
Michael began volunteering with the VDP in his freshman year, giving teaching assistance in an inner city school. He gave tutorship to a few of the school’s pass maths pupils. Next year at freshers’ week , much to his surprise, he was chatting to one of the boys at the VDP stand.
It was out of the VDP that SUAS grew, he explains. It was in his 4th year that he led a group fourteen to Calcutta for the first time. There were certain challenges at first. ‘But soon the remarkable commitment of all those involved’, combined with CSC funding, state support and private philanthropy, enabled the project to take off. ‘It was the power of the idea that carried it forward,’ he explains.
Although acknowledging that we currently live in a ‘resource constrained environment’, when I ask whether the establishment of Suas was due to the prosperity of the era he answers firmly in the negative, arguing that volunteering is about ideas, not money. Michael identifies students as being rich in energy and time, saying, ‘in a student environment you can get a large group of people motivated and committed, which I can’t imagine doing anywhere else.’ He talks about the Bridge2College program where trinity students mentor kids from disadvantaged secondary schools. Apart from the direct educational benefit Michael believes that students from Trinity provide great role-models for those from disadvantaged areas. He also says, ‘there’s no doubt that there are students who would benefit from seeing the other side of life’.
The Trinity VDP still runs educational volunteering projects, such as the St. Enda’s and St. Audeon’s homework clubs, where students help primary school children with their homework. Alison Swain, leader of St. Audeon’s club says that ‘Within a few visits to the school, bonds form between the volunteers and the children.’ Volunteers provide a stable environment for the children to learn, ‘Often volunteers wonder if Irish or spelling and grammar are essential skills to have but they are most certainly not. The children benefit from our encouragement and enthusiasm.’
The whole experience is immensely enjoyable for both the children and the volunteers. ‘Playing in the yard with the children is one of my highlights. You’re brought back to your childhood days of stuck in the mud or a game of polo. The boys are always up for a game of football and when a lad shows up to the school the boys are thrilled.’
The club has continued despite funding cuts and there is a good number of volunteers. However, new volunteers are always welcome, ‘Over the years I have noticed that at least three quarters of the homework club volunteers are first year students. I’d really encourage other years to get involved. It’s only an hour and a half out of the day and worth every second of it.’
An organisation less well known in Ireland is the UK charity/graduate employer/educator, Teach First. Jen Williams, TF recruiter for Trinity, sums up their goals as ‘putting the brightest and the best graduates in the most underprivileged schools.’ In the UK the biggest determiner of academic success is parental wealth and only 10% of teachers consider working in underprivileged schools. TF’s solution is to identify schools with a high proportion of students who qualify for free school meals (a measure of poverty) and a low level of educational achievement. Graduates that are high achievers academically but ‘more importantly who are passionate and want to make a difference,’ are sent on two year teaching placements in such schools. They become fully qualified teachers on the job, but graduates of Teach First have gone on to many different careers. Jen holds that TF develops leadership in their teachers and makes the point that the organisation is currently ranked the 7th best graduate employer by the Times.
Jen informed me that they have already made offers to a number of Trinity students and introduced me to Adam, a TCD graduate and colleague of hers who recently completed the programme. Adam, a former law student, had always aspired to work in the organisation, but still found it an ‘eye-opening experience’, describing it as both immensely challenging and rewarding. But he believes that Trinity students are up to it. ‘Trinity obviously has really good graduates, but there’s also a certain vibe on campus; people are genuinely concerned about social justice issues.’
Volunteering is too often viewed as just an act of charity, of simple, one-sided donation, but Trinity’s volunteers clearly tell a different story and demonstrate that real volunteering and a commitment to education is immensely rewarding for everyone involved. This is not just at an individual level; if educational excellence truly does benefit this country, as everyone who recently ran to lead the SU, and this college, maintained resolutely, then educational disadvantage is something for all of us, as a society, to continue fighting against.
