ALL IN A DAY'S WORK: Imelda Byrne, access officer, NUI Galway

I live in Galway city, about 10 minutes walk from the university, so access to university is no problem for me. Nonetheless, I sometimes drive, I'm ashamed to say. The access office is based in the city centre rather than on campus. It's important for us to be right in the heart of things. It's symbolic of our role I suppose - we bring the university into the community.

My day starts with classes at 9 a.m. We cover the kind of subjects that direct-entry students need for a university career. They choose the faculty they want to study in and then spend April to October preparing for college with us. I give classes in study skills and educational guidance. The students also take academic subjects relevant to their chosen faculty, plus IT and writing modules.

My job creeps up on me from every angle. I often take leave of a class to find someone from the community waiting for me, to ask me about going to college. After that, I might go up to the university to mentor an early school leaver who has started a degree course and needs some extra support.

I come back for a spot of lunch, but invariably my break is hijacked by phone calls from other access officers working on outreach programmes for mature or Gaeltacht students. Then it's time to get out into the community. Part of my job involves exposing second-level and even primary students to the idea of third level, to get them thinking about university. I might take a group of students on a tour of the NUI Galway campus or visit them at school. I also oversee an intergenerational project where retired professionals from the community take classes with Transition Year students to give them guidance and role models for their future careers. It's all about breaking barriers. The retired nurses, doctors, teachers, and so on, who go to the schools don't just sit and lecture the students, they are involved in art, drama and music projects. It seems to work - young people don't have the same extended family supports that they used to and they benefit from contact with older generations. It keeps them interested in education, so they are more likely to stay in the system.

Those students who have left education early and come back through the access programme are very rewarding to work with. They are so delighted to be given a second chance - their enthusiasm is infectious. Many have to overcome socio-economic disadvantage to come back to study.

Non-attendance or lack of application are rarely issues. The degree-completion rate of access students is high. We have been running since 1998, but, so far, our students are sticking with their courses at a rate of about 80 per cent. Twelve of our access students have completed degree courses and are now involved in postgraduate study. Five have completed Higher Diplomas and have gone back to teach in Gaeltacht areas.

There are three times as many people applying to return to education through the access programme than we can accommodate. We have extended our service out into Sligo, so that we can keep the class sizes low while increasing the accessibility. We currently have 200 students in the access programme. It's working. I hope the money keeps coming. I worry, with all the talk of recession, that quality programmes like this might experience a squeeze.

In conversation with Louise Holden