Cultural factors and class inequalities could help explain why the numbers of students going to college from Laois and Offaly are among the lowest in the State, according to the author of a new report.
Laois and Offaly are in the bottom four counties in the State in terms of admission rates to third level, said a Higher Education Authority (HEA) report on admission rates in 1998, written by UCD academic Prof Patrick Clancy.
Donegal had the the lowest amount of admissions, with a rate of 35 per cent. Offaly was the next lowest with 38 per cent. Dublin was just slightly lower than this. And Laois's rate was fourth from the bottom with 39 per cent.
Prof Clancy told The Irish Times he was not exactly sure why the admission rates for the two midland counties was so low. "Traditionally, part of the answer was that completion rates at second level were lower," he said.
This had been a consistent finding in the counties over the past 20 years, he said, but it was less true at the moment, as the number of teenagers finishing second-level education in Laois was currently in line with the national average.
The rates of second-level completion had also increased in Offaly, he said.
Cultural factors also influence admission rates, Prof Clancy said. "Education is valued differently in different areas," he said.
In the west, for example, education is highly valued, an attitude reflected in its high participation rates. Galway, Mayo and Sligo had the highest admission rates in the State, respectively, all of which were more than 55 per cent.
This was highly influenced by the lack of a strong local labour market, he said. In Mayo, for instance, the focus was on the national labour market, positions within which were "negotiated with educational qualifications", he said.
However, in the midlands, the presence of large local employers, such as Bord na Móna, have given a stronger local labour market.
This could be one factor, but, he stressed, these were 1998 figures.
Mr John Hayden, secretary and chief executive of the HEA, said employment with an agency such as Bord na Móna could be combined with agricultural work, especially by young adult males. Laois, he said, has reasonably good agricultural land.
Accessibility to third-level education was without doubt another factor in some cases, Prof Clancy said.
Laois and Offaly were close to the Athlone Institute of Technology and the Institute of Technology Carlow.
Related to accessibility is socio-economic status. The report found that people who go to college in Laois and Offaly were disproportionately from the middle classes.
While this was true of every county in the State, the degree of middle-class dominance is greater in Laois and Offaly than the national average, Prof Clancy said.
The two counties had lower admission rates than other midland counties.
Longford and Westmeath both had admission rates of 49 per cent. Meath and Kildare had rates of 45 per cent and 41 per cent, respectively.
In general, the report said, the findings on "the relative ranking of counties are very similar to those found in previous studies".