The presence of HEAR, designed for students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, and DARE, a similar scheme for those with additional physical or educational needs, is intended to level the playing field for Irish third-level students, but in fact does quite the opposite.
For the students who grew up in well-off households, attended elite private schools, have been blessed with perfect physical health and no learning difficulties, have highly educated parents in senior management positions, and are the beneficiaries of generational wealth and social privilege, these schemes place them at a huge disadvantage.
Ivor, whom we interviewed, was cruelly denied his top course in Economics and Finance (Ec and Fi, as he says, translated as Elitism and Finery). He was then forced to settle for his second choice, Business and Law (which he called B&L and translated as Birds and Lounging about).
While Ivor said he was happy to have gotten into Blackrock 7th year, he was extremely displeased that people were getting into courses like his own without having played SCT rugby and whose parents didn’t spend north of €100,000 on their education. He highlighted how this figure does not even account for e-books, uniforms, school trips, ski holidays, boarding fees and private grinds. Damien, another student we spoke to, gave us his triple-barreled second name every two minutes, but we were unable to reproduce it in this report, as the author could not understand such an Anglo-Saxon muddle of words. Damien stated that he tried to complete both the HEAR and DARE applications but encountered some difficulties. When doing the DARE application, he said that his competitive horse-riding pastime precluded him from being considered to have a physical disability..
Damien had further issues in the HEAR application: “It asked for my father’s occupation, but all I could see was his name at the very top, CEO.” We attempted to explain to Damien that his likely absentee father probably has a name other than CEO, or an IBAN (particularly given that UK and Irish standards of company structuring have not yet fully succumbed to Americanism, so the native terminology is in fact Managing Director or MD). Damien rejected this though, and we gave up convincing him as he is a commerce student and we figured he probably knows sod all regarding business and corporate law.
A representative body for privileged students, the Blackrock Past Pupils Union (PPU), said they were deeply concerned by the discrimination being faced by their members, who no longer have their money and social connections immediately open doors for them at the expense of others. They felt the HEAR and DARE pathways were the major cause of this and therefore should be scrapped.
Jimmy – PPU Representative