QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Q. A school in this area has produced a code of discipline which allows pupils bags to be searched or the pupils to be searched personally. This is a mixed school and it seems to me wrong that girls could be searched by the male principal or male staff. Have parents any rights in this matter? Dublin father

A. My sympathies are with the school. Drugs, unfortunately, appear to be common in most second level schools these days indeed I doubt if there are many post primary schools that have not had a brush with drugs.

In drawing up and enforcing a discipline policy, schools have to take this into account. And I am sure that it is not beyond their wit to ensure that girls are searched by female staff.

Most schools would discuss the code of discipline with the parents' association in advance they are encouraged to do so by the Department of Education. I know, however, that some do not. Others discuss it with the committee of the parents' association, but the association does not involve the wider body of parents, so many remain ignorant.

Schools have their problems, too. I know of schools, for example, where they worry about the legal implications of searching bags and certainly to search the bag of just one child in a class could have implications if she turned out to be innocent some schools get over this by asking all pupils in a class to empty their bag contents on to their desks.

Similar problems could arise with searching, but such a procedure would only be used discreetly and where there was real suspicion.

Like employers, schools have to balance pupils' individual rights with an effective discipline system. Talk to the school principal, talk to the parents' association and find out what the exact background to the search policy is and how it will be implemented. Would you prefer properly conducted searches to having drugs freely circulating?

Q My daughter intends to apply for a degree place in art/design in Britain. But we have been informed by ADAR that not many Irish students from portfolio preparation courses get into such degrees. Co Wicklow parent

A In the British system there is a foundation year in most third level art/design colleges which students undertake before going on to a degree course. So the vast majority of art/design courses would only take British students from these foundation courses.

We had a similar network of one year foundation courses in the Republic until a few years ago. Indeed, the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) still operates a common foundation year.

So in this respect the UK colleges are not much different. The NCAD would not normally accept a portfolio preparation course from a PLC as a substitute for its foundation year either.

Your main reason for seeking a British degree course appears to be because of the small number of art/design degree courses available here. But in art/design, above all areas, the title of the qualification is of little significance it is the quality of the student and her work that matters.

Nobody is going to employ someone simply because she has a degree in art/design if she cannot show a good portfolio of work. There are excellent diploma courses in the DIT, in Crawford College (now incorporated into Cork RTC) in Limerick RTC and several others. If a degree were an important requirement, I'd expect these colleges would have provided follow on degrees in art/design by now as they have in business engineering and science. If I were in your situation, I'd be quite happy to settle for one of those it also makes finding employment at home more likely.

ADAR is, as you know, the separate admissions body for art/design courses for the UK, but it is being subsumed into UCAS from this year. There certainly are some schools here who get students into the foundation year both in Belfast and In Britain a number of portfolio preparation courses also get students into UK art/design colleges, but usually into a foundation year. I'd suggest talking to a few of the bigger PLC colleges providing portfolio preparation courses here and ask if they have links with Northern or British colleges. I suspect that their work is quite rightly mainly geared to the requirements of colleges in the Republic.

Q I am doing the Leaving Cert this year and would like to become a member of the Garda Siochana. I realise I need to undertake further study after school. I would like to do a diploma course. Could you recommend some legal studies courses? Raheny, Dublin student

A You are being very sensible. Rarely are school leavers taken directly into the Garda nowadays it is not uncommon for new recruits to be well into their 20s. So it is essential to do some further study and get work experience.

It is important to equip yourself for another career too, as entry into the Garda is extremely competitive.

Both Letterkenny and Waterford RTC have two year certificate courses in legal studies which offer the possibility to advance to a one year legal studies diploma, Waterford has the additional option of a one year follow on degree in export law after the diploma, so it may be the more desirable route it's also a lot nearer to Dublin

A number of the better graduates from the diploma also manage a transfer to the law degree at UCC. The legal studies diploma would qualify you for quite a number of jobs, including court clerk and legal clerk, but also in areas of business such as export where legal knowledge is required.

You might also like to consider the security studies diploma in the DIT campus in Mountjoy Square. It's a good course in itself and would qualify you to work for private security firms (plenty of jobs there at the moment) as well as providing useful preparatory training for the Garda. As reported last week in E&L, there is also a PLC security studies course in the College of Commerce in Cork.

In the private colleges, there is a diploma in legal studies in Griffith College in Dublin.

Q I have a place in Brighton University to study pharmacy this autumn, but there is no way I can afford to take it up. If could get a place here I would qualify for a maintenance grant, but there is no way could get the 500 plus points needed to get into pharmacy in TCD. Co Wicklow

A I am getting dozens of letters like yours in recent months all from people wanting to study in Britain and wondering if the Minister for Education is going to extend the maintenance grant to them next year, as she promised in the 1995 budget.

The Minister for Education told Q&A recently that a committee is working on the whole issue of financial support for students attending college in other EU member states (she cannot legally restrict it to Britain) and in private colleges. A decision will be announced in May, when the details of the grants scheme for students studying in Ireland are normally released.

There are concerns, however that the rush of Irish students to Britain has started to distort the delicate "manpower" balance which existed here between available jobs and college places in areas such as radiography.

Hospitals and radiography schools report that the easy availability of jobs for graduates in this area has changed and that the influx of additional graduates from Britain has affected this.

At the moment, pharmacy is fine with 50 places available here hopefully rising to 75 before too long in Trinity there is still a surplus of jobs. But with 110 Irish students starting pharmacy this year in Britain, the output from there could easily swamp the jobs market here in four years. The question the Minister has to answer is should she be encouraging this through subsidisation?

If you take medicine, there is a quota of 300 places imposed on Irish universities through agreement between the Irish Medical Organisation and the Higher Education Authority. Supposing 100 Irish students got places in medicine in Britain, and the Minister for Education were to grant aid them she would then be in a situation of, on the one hand, forcing UCD and Trinity to keep a quota of medical places while at the same time subsidising students to study abroad thus undermining the effect of the quota.