‘Pavee Leaders’–enablers and inhibitors to accessing higher education for Irish Travellers

Abstract

Historically, Irish Travellers have experienced social exclusion and marked educational disadvantage. Less than 1% of Travellers are documented as being in third-level education, with only 167 adult Travellers reported as holding a third-level qualification (0.5%). This low rate of participation has been targeted by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS) Programme for Access to Higher Education (PATH). The PATH programme (Strand 3) funded partnership initiatives between higher education institutes in regional clusters. The SOAR partnership initiative in the South Cluster developed a Travellers in Education workstream which delivered three key initiatives: (1) two Leadership in the Community courses delivered at University College Cork (UCC); (2) a Mentoring in Education course delivered at Munster Technological University (MTU) Kerry Campus and (3) a Traveller Graduate Network (TGN) developed at Munster Technological University (MTU) Cork Campus. Two of these initiatives (1 and 2) are bespoke part-time courses for adult learners and the third is a network to support Travellers accessing full-time higher education. Drawing from evaluations of these three initiatives, this paper provides insights into Travellers’ experience of accessing and progressing through Higher Education and identifies supports and barriers.