Facts and Figures
1. ACCESS
- In Primary School, the reading scores of fifth class children whose mothers did not progress beyond the Junior Certificate are 25% lower than those children whose mothers’ achieved a postgraduate qualification (Smith and McCoy).
- At Junior Cycle, young people from higher professional backgrounds achieve 2 grades higher per subject in the Junior Certificate compared to those from non-employed backgrounds (Smith and McCoy).
- At Senior Cycle, 90% of young people with parent(s) in professional occupations complete the Leaving Certificate, compared to just two-thirds of their counterparts from unskilled manual backgrounds (Smith and McCoy).
- In 2004, 86.5% from Dublin 14 (Rathfarnham – Clonskeagh) and 85.5% of students from Dublin 6 (Rathmines – Terenure) went to a higher education institutions compared to just 11.7% from Dublin 10 (Ballyfermot and Chapelizod) and 16.6% from Dublin 17 (Priorswood and Darndale) respectively.
2. HIGHER EDUCATION ACCESS ROUTE
- The Higher Education Access Route was extended from 305 DEIS schools in 2008 to 420 schools in 2009, and to all 730 secondary schools in 2010.
- In 2008, 719 Access Places were filled across the 7 universities and DIT
3. NATIONAL ACCESS TARGETS
- (HEA National Action Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education 2008-2013):
- All socio-economic groups will have entry rates of at least 54 per cent by 2020 ('Non-manual' group at 27 per cent and 'Semi-skilled and unskilled manual' group at 33 per cent in 2004).
- Non-standard entry routes to higher education will be developed so that they account for 30 per cent of all entrants by 2013 (estimated at 24 per cent in 2006).
Page 25 - HEA National Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education 2008-2013