A Chara, - Andy Pollak's report (July 16th) of the Higher Education Authority submission to the Points Commission makes welcome reading indeed for mature students.
Apart from confusion over entry routes/procedures and lack of financial, guidance and childcare supports, the excessive "competitiveness of the points system" has done much to restrict the opportunities for mature students to participate in third-level education. It is ironic that the "high points" courses cited - medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, physiotherapy and law - would appear to the lay person to be ones requiring, or at least benefiting from, a certain maturity on the part of the student.
Yet no mature students are to be found on many of these courses, not because they have failed the entry requirements but because, as a recent university study highlighted, they are refused right of application. Should such restrictive practice continue, this issue may, in the near future, be of as much concern to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform as it should be to the Department of Education and Science.
The HEA is quite correct in identifying the fact that "second-level education is being distorted because of pressure from the points system". What is unclear, and in need of research, is to what extent the third-level system has also suffered distortion as a result of this pressure. It may very well be that the "more holistic approach" suggested in this submission will result in concurrent benefits to second- and third-level education, facilitating and rewarding the maturation of both younger and older students. - Is mise,
Mike Egan, The Irish Mature Students Association, Dublin City University, Dublin 9.