Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris has today announced the launch of two new initiatives to support students with autism and intellectual disabilities in accessing further and higher education, as part of the Programme for Access to Higher Education (PATH) Fund.
The PATH Fund supports innovative approaches to the National Access Plan, a document that lays out the government’s plans and policies to ensure greater accessibility to further and higher education.
The initiatives come in two parts – the first will see an immediate release of €3 million across all publicly funded further and higher education institutions to assist students with disabilities to complete their college experience, and the second will see a further €3 million every year until 2026 awarded to help institutions become more accessible in the future.
Speaking before the launch, Harris said: “Today we’re announcing an immediate 3 million euros to be dispersed across all publicly funded colleges and universities and this will be for things to assist autistic students, and indeed anybody, to get through the college experience.”
He continued: “Phase two then is a further 3 million euro each year to 2026, and this is a call-out to the universities to come up with pathways and programmes for students with intellectual disabilities.”
“It’s great we’re launching this at Trinity College, they’ve led the way in terms of their centre for people with intellectual disabilities, I want to see more innovative ideas like that and now we have the money behind it.”
👇Delighted – at the Launch of PATH 4 Initiative at @tcddublin with Minister @SimonHarrisTD This will enhance access to Higher Ed for Citizens with Intellectual Disabilities – Minister @AnneRabbitte & @LindaDoyle part of this Transformative Change pic.twitter.com/CzAwycqW50
— Dr Tom Clonan (@TomClonan) June 2, 2022
Speaking at the launch alongside Minister for State with responsibility for Disability Anne Rabbitte, Director of Access and Lifelong Learning at UCD Anna Kelly, and VP for Global Engagement at Trinity Emma Stokes, Harris said: “We have never focused on how many students with an intellectual disability or autism have entered or completed third level.”
“These new proposals will allow us to assess how we are doing but crucially, we will be introducing new policy changes to ensure we do better.”
He added: “A key ambition for me is to ensure that supports and opportunities are provided for learning to all. This means recognising the needs of vulnerable learners, people who are most marginalised and people with special and additional needs and assisting them in accessing and progressing through third level education.”
Also speaking at the launch, Rabbitte said the goal of the initiatives “is to ensure that when young people come in through the front gate of any third level university, they feel part of it but they still have the support that they require to make it work for them”.
“Today is a starting point, and it’s a really welcome starting point, and I also look in relation to gathering the data with young people with intellectual disabilities, that transition space is so important”, she said.
“Everybody’s voice needs to be heard, everybody has a skill, and everybody needs to be given the opportunity to shine as bright as they want to shine”.
Speaking after the launch, she added: “People with disabilities in Ireland have equal rights of access to education, but there is much more work to be done to enable people with disabilities to vindicate their right to education, particularly in Further and Higher Education.”
“The work Minister Harris is doing, as evidenced in today’s launch, represents excellent progress in this regard. The New Action Plan is a key piece of work in Ireland’s overall efforts to achieve the objectives of the convention.”
