Students in working-class areas told to "be realistic"

theGavin

A recent report by the ESRI states that students from working class areas should "be realistic" in their course choices , and should stick to PLC's. It also mentions that working class students should not be too ambitious. Not be too ambitious? Bit of an damper on students hopes and dreams, no?

Here is the quote from the Irish Independant : "Scandalously, the study said students in working-class areas were told to "be realistic" and to restrict their ambitions to a Post-Leaving Cert course." The link is here >> http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/thousands-risk-picking-the-wrong-cao-course-2848317.html

I'm just wondering, what are peoples opinions on this? I for one think it is crazy to tell someone "Listen, you're from a bad area. Stick to a PLC. It's not like you're going far"

flyaway.

We are 'working-class' and my 24 year old brother is currently half way through a PhD!

I think everyone should be realistic. And university is realistic for a lot of people.

paulmclaughlin

Alan Sugar left school after he finished the equivalent of the Junior Cert. He is from the East End of London (known to some as a slum). He now has an estimated fortune of £770 million.

Anyone is capable of anything if you try hard enough and never give up.

spurious

Firstly, it's the Indo, not known for high standards of journalism.

It seems the survey was based on the experiences of 900 students, slightly more than one per second level school in the country. I suppose all it's really saying is that if you make cuts again and again over the years to the careers guidance sector, it has an effect. Hardly ground-breaking. Anecdotal evidence about some people being given bad or misleading advice is not really news.

I think the article is filler for a slow news day.

Sunny!!

Dribble and elitist comments from them.

plein de force

What a ridiculous recommendation.

You should be realistic, yes, but not because of your socio-economic background.
Thats just what we need, telling people to limit their ambition, really going to help us get out of this economic mess.

theGavin

mikemac wrote: »

If you work for a living you are working class, that's pretty much everyone no matter if you're an accountant or mop floors

So for me that article is aimed at everyone, not just certain areas

They said working class areas. Would you consider Foxrock a working class area? Some people in Tallaght don't work, and they receive the dole. So, they are not working class by your logic, since they do not work. By god, they must be upper class!

EuropeanSon

mikemac wrote: »

If you work for a living you are working class, that's pretty much everyone no matter if you're an accountant or mop floors

So for me that article is aimed at everyone, not just certain areas

You are confusing the meaning of the term "working class" with some idea that the two words it is made up with are all that decide that term's meaning. The term "working class" does not mean "the class consisting of all people who work". You are just failing at being pedantic here. :rolleyes:

EuropeanSon

I go to TCD, and the two smartest people I know are working class (I think they are, I'm not 100% sure). My father is a builder and I was second in my year this year in college and got 580 points in my LC. I'm not a rare case, either.

jumpguy

I'm a bit dubious about career guidance full stop. It seems to me it's just someone doing a lazy student's work and doing research they should be doing themselves. Nobody can be trained to read a student's mind, find out what they'd like to do (if anything), and spout out their perfect career choice. Which is what many students' expectations of career guidance teachers are...

I'd much prefer schools to have a counsellor that could deal with students uncertain about their future but also other mental health issues (students suffering from bereavement or exam stress, for example.) That'd be more useful and relevant imo.

flyaway.

jumpguy wrote: »

I'd much prefer schools to have a counsellor that could deal with students uncertain about their future but also other mental health issues (students suffering from bereavement or exam stress, for example.) That'd be more useful and relevant imo.

This is what our counsellor does. She used to just be a regular teacher giving career guidance but she took a year out and did some counselling course and came back qualified to do a lot more. She does give advice on careers etc but expects us to have done the research before coming to her. But students go to her for all sorts of things such as stress, anxiety, problems with a student or teacher, depression, bereavement, anything they need to talk about really. A guy in my class lost his mom during the year and she was there for both him and the rest of us. I realize we're probably quite lucky in having her.

miss no stars

The article itself is hardly that scandalous.

The bulk of it is simply highlighting that career guidance in Ireland is too little, too late. With regards the post above, is there a need for it? Yeah. It's hard to know the 3rd level system properly until you've been through it - 2nd level students are outsiders looking in through murky, confusing windows. I don't think good careers councillors make choices for lazy students (which is a terrible accusation in its own right - worthy of a spot in the indo, even), rather, at LC level, they can point students in the right direction with courses and give some direction as to what they should be looking for.

For example, if a student wants to do engineering, a careers guidance teacher could say things like "make sure the courses you're looking at are accreditted by Engineers Ireland, as otherwise the qualification won't be sufficient academic qualification for chartership" or "if they don't have accreditation, find out why not and if they plan to apply for it" etc. I use that example, as I studied engineering and am unfamiliar with other courses, but the similar things can be pointed out to students interested in other areas - what are the differences between nursing in x, y and z colleges - how to find out more about the implications of the differences, where to even look to find these things out. Councillors can also point out areas a student may never have heard of that are similar to other areas that the student is interested in - the student may be looking down a CAO route to it but there might be an equally valid non-CAO route to their career etc etc.

A second level student is far from omniscient about their options. They can't be by virtue of the fact that they're a second level student and haven't experienced college and seen first hand the difference that some things can make, the different routes that people came to their course through. Sometimes a person needs to be told that they need to look into something as without the knowledge they'd gain from looking into it, they don't know how important that thing is to begin with and would bypass it! (If that makes sense, garbled I know).

Regarding the bit about students in working class areas, they also state that sometimes it's a juggling act between parental expectations and the student's ambitions. It's very poorly worded tbh, but I think one of the things they were trying to get at is that sometimes the CAO route might not b ein the best interests of the student. A student may want to do management and so did business studies and economics, but the family might expect them to go out and get a job and stop being a drain on the family finances. Guidance councillors can show the students work based routes to management (and qualification, such as through the Lidl and Aldi management programmes) that would allow the ambition to be achieved without making life difficult at home. College is EXPENSIVE and if money's tight at home, it might not be enjoyable because of the expense involved in it. Straight through the CAO may not always be the best route for a student or their family!

Scandalously, the study said students in working-class areas were told to "be realistic" and to restrict their ambitions to a Post-Leaving Cert course.
...She said that in disadvantaged areas, guidance counsellors were not trying to dampen down student expectations, but also had to deal with family expectations.

The bit in bold is poorly worded - does the report actually say that exactly? Is the report misreporting? The problem here is tht the report is all very subjective. What if it was 3 students in working class areas who were fairly poor/average students who were going on about wanting law/medicine and got told that they ought to realign their ambitions with reality? What if there were 97 other students in working class areas who were assisted through the CAO application process and encouraged to achieve - because their ambitions were in line with their ability? What if the students were encouraged to do a PLC because the careers teacher could see a massive storm brewing at home because mammy and daddy were convinced that they were already letting the kid stay in school too long and sure, they didn't even do the inter and now the kid wants to do the leaving cert AND go to college???? Studies like these are fine in theory, but they're VERY subjective and I think reading the recommendations of the study would be of more benefit than reading the findings, as the findings are based on subjective experience by a small sample.

Also, numbers are not given in that report on the study which makes me inherently disinclined to trust it as being unbiased reporting and I really don't care enough to find the original report. They wanted sensationalism and they got it.

dambarude

jumpguy wrote: »

I'm a bit dubious about career guidance full stop. It seems to me it's just someone doing a lazy student's work and doing research they should be doing themselves. Nobody can be trained to read a student's mind, find out what they'd like to do (if anything), and spout out their perfect career choice. Which is what many students' expectations of career guidance teachers are...

It depends on the career guidance teacher tbh.

I do think that there's a role for them. Some students just aren't tuned in enough to know when certain things need to be done, and how to do them. Some students' parents wouldn't know enough to be able to give certain advice to their children, given they might not have gone to college themselves, or even done a leaving cert.

My career guidance counsellor couldn't tell me what to do in Leaving, but that wasn't her job, but I still found it useful to run things by a person who knew what I was talking about. My career guidance teacher was quite good, so I'm guess I was lucky.

theGavin

miss no stars wrote: »

but the family might expect them to go out and get a job and stop being a drain on the family finances.

If the family cannot afford to put that said person to college, then that student may be entitled to a VEC grant (or any type of grant).

spurious

I'd be more interested in hearing why so many very high points students (say 550+) end up applying for the same very limited range of courses.

I can understand at the lower end of the scale that people have little choice, but why, when a student could do any course they want, do so many apply for the same small range of courses.

It doesn't happen in other countries and I wonder is the relatively poor state of careers guidance in schools to blame.

dambarude

spurious wrote: »

I can understand at the lower end of the scale that people have little choice, but why, when a student could do any course they want, do so many apply for the same small range of courses.

I think a lot of it is related to the perceived prestige of these courses. They're seen as being fairly exclusive, and in reality do hold some of the highest wages. Money talks.

That and the mindset that you shouldn't 'waste points', which is pretty ridiculous.

flyaway.

Yes, it's mostly what's expected of them and I can only imagine it's a lot of pressure to be under. I know a girl who got 600 points and went and did Arts and is now teaching. Everyone said she was 'wasting all those points' and 'she could do ANYTHING she wanted, why was she doing Arts?' while completely missing the point that Arts was obviously what she DID want to do.

randylonghorn

theGavin wrote: »

A recent report by the ESRI states that students from working class areas should "be realistic" in their course choices , and should stick to PLC's. [/URL]

Hold up for a sec ... the report from the ESRI doesn't say that students from working-class areas should "be realistic", it says that it found that some students had been advised like that (or at least according to the Independent, I haven't seen the report yet myself}.

I can however guarantee that the ESRI would never give any such advice on its own behalf.

flyaway. wrote: »

We are 'working-class' and my 24 year old brother is currently half way through a PhD!

I think everyone should be realistic. And university is realistic for a lot of people.

I agree completely.

On the other hand, though, many people are pushed to university by parents / push themselves to go there, and it's not the right place for them at all.

But it has nothing to do with the area they come from, or their "class", it has to do with their abilities and aptitudes and interests.

People *should* be realistic, but in the right way.

spurious wrote: »

Firstly, it's the Indo, not known for high standards of journalism.

Is it my imagination, or were they better on education in the past than they have been for the last few years?

jumpguy wrote: »

Nobody can be trained to read a student's mind, find out what they'd like to do (if anything), and spout out their perfect career choice. Which is what many students' expectations of career guidance teachers are...

That's very true, but they can certainly be helpful if the expectations are realistic. And indeed most are ... but a few I have encountered, not so much.

And spurious is right in saying that they're crazily over-stretched in terms of what could usefully / should be done.

The Scientician

Students from every background should try to find out as much information about a course before commiting to it. Sometimes, with a lack of knowledge, people will pick the course that's wrong for them, and they just will struggle and eventually fail. I think 17/18 is maybe a little bit too young in the grand scheme of things to decide your career path.

Xxsparkyxx

theGavin wrote: »

A recent report by the ESRI states that students from working class areas should "be realistic" in their course choices , and should stick to PLC's. It also mentions that working class students should not be too ambitious. Not be too ambitious? Bit of an damper on students hopes and dreams, no?

Here is the quote from the Irish Independant : "Scandalously, the study said students in working-class areas were told to "be realistic" and to restrict their ambitions to a Post-Leaving Cert course."

OP your comment is unclear. You are suggesting that the ESRI told students in their report to be "realistic".but in the quote from the article it states that the ESRI conducted a study in which It was found that students from disadvantaged areas were told to be realistic from guidance counsellors I presume.The ESRI didn't actually make the comments.

Lexii307

flyaway. wrote: »

Yes, it's mostly what's expected of them and I can only imagine it's a lot of pressure to be under. I know a girl who got 600 points and went and did Arts and is now teaching. Everyone said she was 'wasting all those points' and 'she could do ANYTHING she wanted, why was she doing Arts?' while completely missing the point that Arts was obviously what she DID want to do.

A neighbour of mine, all of their family are doctors and have gotten 600 points in their LC. They got 600 in the mock and are likely to get that in the LC. They want to do law. Its not quite the same but im guessing there will still be the same mentality!

theGavin

theGavin wrote: »

................
I'm just wondering, what are peoples opinions on this? I for one think it is crazy to tell someone "Listen, you're from a bad area. Stick to a PLC. It's not like you're going far"

I'm from a working class background, not poverty stricken but working class. My sister got 570 points in her leaving cert which she did in a school that folks don't go to as it's "rough". She's a chartered accountant now but she could have done anything really, she had no interest in medicine and the like. I got 455 in mine but only needed 200 odd as my course was a cert to start with, then onto the diploma and the degree.

Any student who can attain the points for whatever course they want to do should be encouraged to do whatever they want. Obviously if they're parents can't support them through college and if they cannot get a part time job and need to live away from home for college it may well be a non runner. That applies to kids from working class backgrounds living in rural areas too of course though.

Bonavox

To be honest, working class areas tend to have smaller Leaving Cert classes which makes it very possible to get a good Leaving Cert. My class, for example, has 12 students in it. The rest are either in LCA or have left. I can get individual attention and my teachers are always willing to do extra classes etc. with students one-on-one.

That article is ridiculous to suggest working class students should stick to PLC.

munchkin_utd

Bonavox wrote: »

That article is ridiculous to suggest working class students should stick to PLC.

the article doesnt suggest it, nor does the report.

The report reports that it was found that Career Advice Teachers in poorer areas are tending to advise students to stick to a plc course.

the question though is, is it advice to be realistic in terms of their academic ability or to be realistic in terms of what it takes financially to get through college.
PLCs are shorter and more practical so cheaper for a student to do and youre quicker into the workforce earning a crust.

spurious

munchkin_utd wrote: »

PLCs are shorter and more practical so cheaper for a student to do and youre quicker into the workforce earning a crust.

...and they can be a quick 'back door' into university courses.

NSNO

Our career guidance teacher seemed to have a deep-rooted mistrust and dislike towards academia and universities in general.

He always recommended the more employment focused third-level courses and seemed to view Arts degrees as a frivolous waste of time.

I've always wanted to do Computer Science so it never affected me directly but I was always really annoyed by him telling people who want to study the arts that they'd be better off doing something they can directly get a job from.

Also, his habit of focusing on practical PLC courses rather than trying to encourage the impressionable young people in his classroom to consider the sciences or arts in university was just sad. PLC courses are well and good and are more suitable for many people but why couldn't these be discussed in a personal, individual manner in a private meeting?

To me it seemed that everyone in my class who wanted to go to university were either highly self-motivated or came from families that took a great deal of interest in their children's education (or both) and left to research university courses on their own beyond the odd (and obvious) comment that computing is a growth industry. They didn't even try to motivate the rest.

Whatever happened to trying to inspire young people to fulfill their full potential and be the best rather than just telling them that this or that PLC course is "grand"?


Again, trying not to belittle PLC courses here. Any offense wholly unintended.

amacachi

Why would income influence someone's decision so much? Aren't the grants etc. the same for PLCs and for Ordinary and Honours degrees? :S

dambarude

amacachi wrote: »

Why would income influence someone's decision so much?

It's often mentioned that children from so called 'working class' backgrounds are discouraged from going to university if it will require them to get in to debt to do so. It's probably true to some extent.

There's all sorts of sociological theories on why this happens, but here probably isn't the best place to discuss them.

Aren't the grants etc. the same for PLCs and for Ordinary and Honours degrees? :S

I'm not sure if you can get the traditional grant for PLC courses. I'm open to correction on that though.

The grant of €3600 wouldn't cover all costs if you have to find separate accommodation away from home while in college.

implausible

NSNO wrote: »

PLC courses are well and good and are more suitable for many people but why couldn't these be discussed in a personal, individual manner in a private meeting?

Whatever happened to trying to inspire young people to fulfill their full potential and be the best rather than just telling them that this or that PLC course is "grand"?

PLCs/FETAC Level 5 courses should be discussed with a class group as they are an important sector of our education system. I am always amazed at Careers' Fairs when students don't realise that they can get into 3rd level courses through the Higher Education Links Scheme or into courses in ITs that run the Pilot Scheme (where students use their FETAC results as points, often scoring far higher than they did in their LC). They're also ideal for someone who wants a qualification after 1 year.

amacachi wrote: »

Aren't the grants etc. the same for PLCs and for Ordinary and Honours degrees? :S

You can get a grant for PLC/FETAC Level 5 and then when you get into 3rd level as you are progressing through the framework - Level 5, 6, 7 etc.

implausible

Another thing that should be pointed out is that Career Guidance teachers are no longer called that. They are Guidance Counsellors and they have a broad remit, taking in the following three headings:

1. Personal Guidance - speaks for itself. Students may be referred because of various issues.

2. Career Guidance - again, fairly obvious.

3. Educational Guidance - if someone needs resource hours, meetings with parents, offering students help on Results' Day, organising study skills etc.

As you can see, the Career Guidance bit is actually one part, but with 500 students to 1 Guidance Counsellor, I'm amazed that any of them get any work done.