In a speech that returned to the constant theme of his time as minister, Richard Bruton told an audience that “in the next decade our education training service will become the best in Europe”.
Bruton was speaking at the 21st Century Schools of Distinction award ceremony, the culmination of a day that saw a report on the Trinity Access 21 programme released showing it has significantly increased the appeal of a third-level degree to young adults from low socio-economic backgrounds. The programme will now be further expanded to 72 schools across Ireland.
In the room, some of the biggest names in Irish society rubbed shoulders with teachers who have made creating routes into education the focal points of their careers.
Frank Clarke, Ireland’s new Chief Justice, sat seats away from Trinity Access Programme graduate and ambassador Gary Gannon, while former Warden of Trinity Hall and Co-Director of Trinity Access 21 Brendan Tangney ushered Bruton into the Dining Hall.
While the higher education funding issue might have remained unsolved over the last few years of Bruton’s tenure, he has constantly talked up the value of widening access to third-level education, putting lofty aims in the government’s five-year action plan for education.
His speech this evening stayed away from the thorny issue of funding, but he returned to the “republic of opportunity” rhetoric beloved of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who in the same room only days before had promised that students wouldn’t end up overburdened by UK-style loans.
“Potentially transformative” was how Bruton framed Trinity’s access programme and indeed the success of the programme has been remarkable. A TAP-inspired programme in Oxford is only one achievement in a programme that has guided hundreds of students from disadvantaged backgrounds from into higher education and beyond.
Bruton acknowledged the “transformation” the Irish education system has undertake in recent years. He was careful, however, to warn those in the room “not to show any sign of complacency for the journey we have to travel”. Asking the room questions like “Is our education system helping people fulfil their potential?”, he admitted that “we have a long way to go”.
Calling on those in the room to constantly challenge their own perception of education and that of those around them, Bruton said that nights like this one in Trinity are about “breaking out of the traditional conversation about education in this country”.
The speech might have been low on stirring rhetoric, but it was one largely typical of Bruton – offering his own hard truths about the role innovation and the economy will play in a fairer and more equal society.
The report on the Trinity Access 21 programme, which is funded through a €1.5 million grant from Google, found that students who visited a college were 2.3 times more likely to plan on doing a degree than those who never visited. The report also found that mentors were an important element in increasing the inclination of young students to attend university. Students with a mentor were 3.2 times more likely to plan to complete a college degree than one without, the report found. The coordinator of the research, Dr Katriona O’Sullivan, emphasised the importance of mentoring in a press statement, commending the “positive changes to the student-teacher relationship”.
The success of the findings has allowed the Trinity Access 21 initiative to be expanded to 72 schools across Ireland over the coming years. The team at Trinity aims to reach 20,000 students, 1,500 teachers, and to partner with other higher and further education institutions, institutes of technology and education training boards. A range of companies and individuals in partnership with the government have supported this next phase of the initiative, which will total €2 million.
Speaking this evening, Vice-Provost Chris Morash said “Trinity has become an emblematic Irish institution” for education. This has been achieved through partnerships like the ones developed with Google and KPMG under TAP. “Education in all sorts of ways is a partnership. It doesn’t work otherwise”, he explained.
Nadine Fitzpatrick contributed reporting to this piece.
