Dr William Reville column: Much media attention recently has focused on access to university. Children of better-off parents go to university in much greater numbers than children in the less-well-off groups. Much of the recent media comment concluded that money can buy university places.
I believe this conclusion is at best only slightly correct. A positive correlation between two things doesn't necessarily mean that one causes the other. In my opinion, the pre-eminently important factor in deciding whether one goes to university is attitude.
Let me give two examples of attitude. I know a daughter of well-off professional parents who sat this year's Leaving Certificate exam. The family has a "tradition" of achieving top-class honours in the Leaving Cert. This girl studied hard and supplemented her schooling with expensive grinds. She got 590 points. The maximum achievable is 600 points. She was "devastated" and had a subject rechecked hoping to gain the extra 10 points.
I also know a son of a manual labouring father and housekeeping mother who sat the Leaving Certificate this year and was offered a place on a university economics degree programme. When I last spoke to him he was unsure whether to accept the offer. He had heard of some scheme whereby he could work on building sites in Germany for "big money" and he thought he might try this for a couple of years. He said his parents were leaving the decision to him.
We know a lot about student intake to higher education in Ireland across the socio-economic groups, thanks largely to the work of Professor Patrick Clancy of UCD, whose latest study - "College Entry in Focus: A Fourth National Survey of Access to Higher Education" - was published by the Higher Education Authority in 2001.
I have culled some figures from the report that list the percentages of students in the appropriate age-group entering higher education, grouped by father's socio-economic group in 1980 and 1998. The 1980 figure is the first figure within the brackets and the 1998 figure is the second: farmers (30, 72); other agricultural occupations (6, 34); higher professional (59, 97); lower professional (33, 47); employers and managers (42, 81); salaried employees (59, 53); intermediate non-manual workers (22, 32); other non-manual workers (9, 31); skilled manual workers (9, 32); semi-skilled manual workers (9, 23); unskilled manual workers (3, 21).
On the whole, the better-off socio-economic groups participate in higher education to a much greater extent than the less well-off groups. However, in the latter cases, participation rates are increasing steeply, albeit from very low rates in 1980.
The high level of participation by farmers is particularly interesting. Many farmers earn only very modest incomes, yet perceive themselves as people of substance and keenly avail of the huge advantage offered by higher education, which brings me to the subject of attitude.
Why do middle class children, whose parents must pay full maintenance costs while they attend university, participate in much greater numbers than working class children who are eligible for full maintenance grants from the Government? One possible reason is that the maintenance grants are very inadequate, but I don't believe that.
Many students have told me that the grants are sufficient to keep them in frugal comfort. Also, I went through college supported by a Wexford County Council Scholarship awarded on the basis of my Leaving Certificate results, and I was able to live on this modest money without any great difficulty.
Other factors postulated to account for the different participation rates include better teaching in middle class schools and the ready availability of grinds paid for by well-off parents.
I don't believe these factors play a hugely significant role. Good teaching is not exclusive to fee-paying schools, but I must admit that grinds make a difference, especially if the school teaching a certain subject is weak.
In my opinion, attitude is the big factor. The middle classes greatly value higher education, advocate it strongly to their children and are prepared, if necessary, to make sacrifices to send children to university. The children are trained to postpone the gratification of taking up employment immediately after the Leaving Certificate for the greatly enhanced opportunities they perceive a few years down the road.
This culture is not as strong in the poorest socio-economic groups. There is very often no tradition of higher education in the family and many parents will lack the confidence to strongly advocate third level education to their children.
The poorest people also find it more difficult to postpone early employment than better-off people, having learned from experience that it is better to avail of an opportunity now because tomorrow it may not be there. This view is that it is better to take a job immediately after the Leaving Certificate rather than spend four years in college living on peanuts and with no guarantee of a better job on graduation.
It is important that the poorer socioeconomic groups participate more fully in third level education. As technology develops there will be less and less demand for manual, even skilled labour, and most jobs will require some third level training.
Yet cultural attitudes are not easily changed. Interventions advocating the importance of life-long education must be implemented at all levels of education, but particularly at primary level. It is also critically important to target all parents with this message.
Different socio-economic groups have different attitudes in certain areas, and a completely classless society is probably impossible to achieve.
However, if all groups participated fully in third-level education we might go a long way in that direction.
William Reville is Director of Microscopy and Associate Professor of Biochemistry at UCC