An ex-Minister for Enterprise in Ireland famously remarked once that, while we were geographically closer to Berlin, spiritually we were closer to Boston. Events over the past week have caused me to wonder if the same applies in the area of Irish Student Affairs.
This week, I had the great honour of presenting a paper at the
Bologna – Social Dimension International Conference. The Conference brought student affairs professionals from over 40 countries to Berlin to discuss how we could provide the supports to students to support the Bologna Process. Case studies on student support services were presented from countries spanning five continents. As I presented to the audience, it became very clear that the Irish model of Student Services had many similarities to the US, UK, and Australian models, but was quite different to the models in France, Germany, Italy and the Nordic countries.
In Ireland we have traditionally looked to the US for inspiration in the area of Student Affairs. Indeed, I spent two very happy years studying and working in Missouri to get my Masters in Student Affairs. The researchers that I and my Irish colleagues quote would tend to be from the US – Astin, Tinto, Chickering, Pascarella and Terenzini, Kuh . . . the list goes on.
However, the last few days in Berlin have been an eye-opener. The European models have succeeded in making basic necessities, such as accommodation and food, very affordable for students – something the Irish system has failed to do (Ireland is one of only two countries in Europe where on-campus accommodation is more expensive than private rented accommodation). The centralised support systems provided by the German Studentenwerken and the Norwegian Studentsamskipnaden have undoubted advantages in a time when the Irish government are urging HEIs in Ireland to collaborate and share resources. Beyond the boundaries of Europe there are also valuable lessons to be learned. In Asia, where central government is developing new Universities on a massive scale, they have studied student services and copied best practice from around the globe to develop high-quality, professional services from scratch.
In short, to answer the question of whether we should be looking to Berlin or Boston, I think Irish Student Affairs will need to look all over the world to find inspiration and ideas that will help us improve the student experience in higher education. In the short to medium term, I do hope and believe that we will be working much closer with our European colleagues to develop the Social Dimension of European Higher Education.
As a postscript – it was gratifying to realise that Irish Student Services are rated very highly by our European colleagues. In particular they were interested in our guidelines for best practice; how we had reached a situation where 65% of our school leavers enter Higher Education; and how we have widened equity of access. We tend to be quite self-critical (even more so in the past three years) so it was a lovely moment for me when the speaker from the European Commission showed several slides where Ireland was clearly the most successful country in tackling access issues.
It’s not surprising that Sports are on top, given the size and scale of the facilities that they usually manage. However, it is unexpected to see student societies languishing on the bottom, given their positive impact on student engagement. One explanation is that in some of the smaller colleges, societies are funded through the Students’ Union, and so their funding may be understated. Similarly, Student Health Centres are usually ranked as the most important service by students, so their funding might be expected to be higher. However, several colleges have recently introduced charges for their Health Centres, which might explain the relatively low funding. It’s also interesting to consider what those figures would have looked like 15 years ago (access, disability and mature student support would have been largely absent for a start).
