Sir, - I refer to your report about the 30 per cent drop-out rate of first year students in the Tallaght Institute of Technology (The Irish Times, February 9th). The report states that the management identified four main factors leading to this high drop out rate:
"students have a poor appreciation of what third level study involves."
"students are often unsure of what the programme they accepted entails."
"students are often unable to undertake the type of autonomous work involved in third level."
"students are poorly motivated."
What an extraordinary argument and simplistic analysis. It suggests that the institute is a perfect centre of education and that any problems that do exist arise because the students are in some way flawed. Whatever happened to the concepts of flexibility and being student-centred? Would it ever occur to the management that it might have some responsibility for the high-drop-out rate?
For the past 20 years I have worked with people who feel excluded from the education system - early school-leavers, adults with literacy difficulties, long-term unemployed, etc. For the vast bulk of these people their experience of the formal education system has been negative. Very often they feel that they are to blame for their low educational attainments.
Rarely do they question the failings of the school system.
Many of the adult education programmes initiated over the past decades have sought ways to build up the confidence and skills of these people so that they can re-enter the educational system, sometimes at third level. And what if they run into difficulties in such places as the Tallaght Institute of Technology? They will not be told that they are to blame and that they have to change.
If education is about a partnership between student and provider, I would suggest strongly that co-responsibility be a core attitude when it comes to facing problems such as drop-out rates. Institutes can also fail. - Yours, etc.,
Noel Dalton, Adult Education Organiser, Co Kildare VEC, Naas.