What can be done to keep them in college?

At a recent colloquium on third-level retention rates organised by the National Centre for Guidance in Education, participants identified a range of initiatives which would ensure that more students remain in college. "Students need better college publicity, user-friendly language, pre-course briefings, taster sessions and realistic induction programmes, which highlight the demands and difficulties of courses," argues Dr Dermot Douglas, registrar of Tallaght IT.

"College prospectuses are dull and full of irrelevant information," observes guidance counsellor Richard Keane. Much of the information is inappropriate. "Students aren't interested in pictures of CEOs or the annual report," he says.

Much college literature arrives in schools too late, guidance counsellors complain.

The CAO application form also comes in for criticism. "It's dry, it's dreary, it's the closest thing to an eastern-Europe type publication that I know of," Keane says. The colleges offer "a colossal number of subjects which have no direct links in the school curriculum. If they are there, it's not obvious," says a guidance counsellor.

According to Kerry-based guidance counsellor Tim Lynch, sixth-year students simply don't have the time to research college courses and careers. "They're doing seven subjects - they're doing some subjects they're not interested in," he says.

Colleges should offer more general-entry science and engineering courses to first-years, he suggests, and let students make their decisions about specialisation in second year. (The Government-appointed Points Commission has supported this recommendation.) "Some students are doing science without labs.

There are so many choices. Students don't know what the different types of engineering are." Guidance counsellors look forward to implementation of the Points Commission proposal for increasing their numbers, in order to provide a better service. Most guidance counsellors are working against time, they say. "There are 31 delivery points to be spread over a year and the CAO is only one of them," Richard Keane explains. "You can spend an hour on admission to US colleges and four hours on UCAS.

In the Border counties, where you have a lot more students going through UCAS, you spend up to two weeks doing UCAS forms." There's concern, too, that parents are often too closely involved in their offsprings' course choices. "They should step back and let their children make up their own minds," says a guidance counsellor.

According to Columb Collins, director of Tallaght IT, no matter how well prepared they are, some students will inevitably pick the wrong courses. "We have to be careful that if students do drop out there are ways back in - it could be in four or five years' time or it could be on a part-time course."

Currently no change-of-mind facility exists for students who make poor college choices. More flexible transfer systems need to be devised to facilitate course transfers both within and between institutions. Teaching quality is another vital aspect, educators say. Rewards should be available for good teaching. Meanwhile, there's concern that many students lack the self-confidence to seek help or give voice to problems they are experiencing.

According to the DIT's head of student counselling, Dr Susan Lindsay, it's too simplistic to put the blame for dropping-out on students. "We must look at the institution and how it operates and at the students who are there and what happens to them afterwards. Arriving in college can be a culture shock for many students. "Some students, including those who are first-generation, matures and disadvantaged, are more vulnerable," she says. Research conducted by Lindsay among first-year DIT students shows that 60 per cent report some degree of stress. Age, being away from home and a lack of role models at college are contributing factors. "Students use a wealth of coping mechanisms and need help with these," she says.

Citing the huge amount of peer dependancy among first-years, Lindsay recommends the introduction of buddy systems. For second-year students, practical supports are more important, she says. Experts also argue in favour of indepth induction programmes which run throughout first year. Students, they say, need to be equipped with the skills they need for higher education, which will enable them to become active learners and give them self-confidence.

Some colleges are beginning to take action and offer students supports. "We are reviewing our course requirements in engineering and computing," says Tallaght IT's registrar. "We will front-load some subjects. We will be testing for maths on a weekly basis and provide students who are having difficulties with extra tuition."

The issue of students being involved in part-time work is a contentious one. There's much evidence to show that part-time employment can seriously damage your academic prospects. "The level of part-time working among students is phenomenal," CIT's Ed Riordan observes. "They work to fund a social life. The time spent working and studying eats into their study time."

Tallaght IT, however, is taking a pragmatic view. "Part-time working is now a fact of life, for students, says Columb Collins. "We have to accept it. At Tallaght IT, we are considering plans to act as a workplacement agency for our students, so that we can push them to work in areas which relate to their studies. If we could do this, it would help a lot."

Colleges, it is suggested, should even examine ways in which our system, which is not geared to the American work-your-way-through-college model, can be made more flexible.