Subject level choices cut migrant students’ college chances

Migrant children’s chances of attending college are reduced before they even sit the Junior Certificate because of subject level choices, research shows.

NUI Galway’s Dr Valerie Ledwith said the finding, based on research at schools in Galway, showed migrant students were less likely than others to take higher-level English, maths, and science.

This means their odds of going to university were severely curtailed because of the reduced points available for ordinary level subjects they would go on to take in the Leaving Certificate.

The study, among more than 500 students, found that children of returning Irish emigrants were less likely than other migrant student groups to take higher-level Junior Certificate English or maths.

Non-migrant students were seven times more likely to sit higher-level English than this group, but also nearly four times more likely to do so than foreign-born children of foreign parents.

The Galway Education Survey by Dr Ledwith and Dr Kathy Reilly of NUIG’s school of geography and archaeology, was funded by the Irish Research Council and European Commission.

Dr Ledwith said the Department of Education should pursue further research to establish the cause of the disparities.

The study found those who did not attend their first-choice second-level school did not perform as well as others, regardless of being migrant or not.

Dr Ledwith welcomed Education Minister Ruairi Quinn’s move to regulate for school enrolment policies, but agreed with the recommendation of the Oireachtas education committee that schools that are over-subscribed should not be allowed give preference to children of past pupils.