The State's institutes of technology (ITs) are exceeding Government targets for participation by students from "non-traditional" backgrounds as much as three years ahead of schedule, despite receiving significantly less access funding than universities, new research has revealed.
The research, presented at a Higher Education Authority (HEA) conference in Kilkenny last week, also indicates that ITs are making considerable progress in improving access for mature students and those from unskilled or agricultural backgrounds.
However, the amount of money available to the ITs, including the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), is significantly smaller than that available to the universities.This is because last year, 13 ITs as well as DIT, the National College of Ireland and the Tipperary Institute, competed for access funding of just €1.83 million.
By comparison, nine HEA-funded institutions, including all seven universities, had access to €7.3 million in funding. In addition, because other "student assistance" funding is allocated on a per-student basis, smaller institutions such as the ITs, which deal with greater numbers of disadvantaged students, also lose out.
According to latest admission statistics for the 2003/2004 academic year, presented by Dr Dermot Douglas of the Council of Directors of ITs, 33 per cent of students from unskilled/agricultural backgrounds entitled to attend ITs are doing so.
This compares with a target of 27 per cent of such students by 2006 set by the Department of Education and Science's action group on access to third-level education.
Similarly, 28.5 per cent of those from unskilled backgrounds who qualify to attend ITs are doing so, exceeding the target for 2003 by 1.5 per cent, while the number of full and part-time mature students stands at 26 per cent.
This is 4 per cent above the target for 2003 and equal to the target for 2006.
Dr Douglas told The Irish Times that where ITs could afford an access, careers or counselling officer, universities could afford to offer a full service.
"If you look at what we've managed to achieve with fairly meagre resources, imagine what we would be able to do if we were adequately resourced to deal with the disadvantage agenda," he added.
Mr Paddy Healy, president of the Teachers Union of Ireland, which represents many teachers in the IT sector, said the new figures showed that the main "burden of economic disadvantage" lay in the IT sector.
Institutes of technology should be given adequate assistance to deal with the "hurdles of disadvantage", he added.