Provost Prendergast announcing this year’s scholars on Trinity Monday. Photo: Jack Leahy
Anonymous
Trinity College Dublin has always been a fan of traditions. Foremost among these is the tradition of ‘schols.’ Being elected to scholarship, as every student knows, is a great honour and a great achievement – it always has been and always will be. Unfortunately, the high status that the schols tradition has around campus has served to make the institution almost immune from criticism. In a community where we pride ourselves on questioning, schols has remained steadily ‘unquestioned.’ In this article I want to put forward some arguments for why the the schols programme should be scaled down significantly.
Cost
€88, 900. This is the cost each year (even excluding administration) of providing the most meagre of schol benefits. This is the cost of providing the €254 salary for scholars for each of the 350 scholars. This benefit pales in comparison to the free campus room (or cash in lieu), the free three course meal every day (or cash in lieu) , or the waiving of college fees. All of which are presumably being paid for by our student contribution and the fee subsidy per student from the government. At a time where bright students are dropping out of college because they cannot afford it, can we really justify paying scholars a ‘salary’ for the job of going to college and broadening their life opportunities, all while receiving fee food and board? Can we justify a three course meal every single day? This is not an argument for getting rid of all schols benefits. Certainly, I’ in favour of the ‘Sch.’ after a student’s name, or a privilege of grazing livestock on the college lawns, or even highly subsidised fees at masters level, or subsidised accommodation and some meals. It just seems extraordinary that we would need to confer so many benefits on these students, when becoming a scholar would be an extremely attractive prospect, even with half the benefits.
Anyone who is currently a scholar has had to demonstrate huge commitment and huge ability in order to get where they are now – that is not being questioned. However, considering that such absolutely huge benefits flow from achieving a 1.1 in one particular set of exams, the equality of opportunity in the system has to be looked at. It has to be admitted that there are people who are equally hardworking and academically able that cannot qualify for schols. An example of such people are people who need to work at part time jobs. I am sure there is the occasional scholar who worked up to and even during their scholarship exams. However, in my own experience, none of the students I know who became scholars did so. They didn’t need to. On the other hand, those I know who did exceptionally well In first year exams but then didn’t go on to take schols were those who had to work. They couldn’t take the risk of losing guaranteed income in order to take the chance. Yet another factor to take into account is luck. Or caring responsibilities at home. Of course, if everyone had to have equal opportunities at everything, nothing would ever get done. It’s just not feasible to put everyone on equal footing. So this is not an argument for the abolition of schols; it is an argument against pumping such huge amounts of resources into a system, as if we knew it were infallible. A more even spread of resources across the college community would have a more positive effect on learning that concentrating a disproportionate amount of resources on non-academic benefits for a group who are in many respects, in less need than others.
Mental Health
Being elected to scholarship is, as I said at the beginning of this article, a huge honour and a huge achievement. We shouldn’t need huge monetary benefits in order to make scholarship worth it. Neither should we elevate the concept to a level where the rest of the college community feels their academic work is of significantly lesser value.
