School Outreach Programmes
Outreach and Continuing Professional Development in Equality Studies and Women's Studies
Women’s Studies and Equality Studies at UCD have a long track record of co-operation with national and community-based groups and organisations in the development and strengthening of community-university partnerships and in providing innovative community-based learning opportunities.
The suite of outreach programmes offered within the School include Certificates in Women’s Studies and Equality Studies. Both Certificates have recently been mapped to the National Framework of Qualifications as 30-credit Level 7 University Certificates. In addition Women’s Studies offers a Diploma programme, also mapped at level 7. The Equality Studies Centre has recently developed Certificates in Professional Development at NFQ levels 8 and 9. For full details on all programmes see Appendix 3.0.
The School’s outreach programmes have been running since the early 1990s. In relation to Women’s Studies, a total 35 outreach access programmes at Certificate level have been delivered since 1998. Prior to this the delivery of Certificate programme was on Belfield campus. In addition an innovative Diploma programme was developed in 2001 to meet the progression demands of Women’s Studies Certificate graduates. To date 11 programmes at Diploma level have been delivered. Approximately 650 students will have graduated from these Women Studies programmes by May 2009.
In relation to Equality Studies, a range of outreach modules, programmes and related short courses have been delivered since 1994 involving approximately 430 students. These include 9 Certificate programmes, from which approximately 144 students have graduated. Outreach in Equality Studies has also encompassed professional development courses in equality theory and policy as well as equality training for specific groups.
Until recently, graduates of the Diploma in Women’s Studies were able to progress to the Graduate Diploma, while graduates of the Certificate in Equality Studies were able to enter the Graduate Certificate. In 2008-9, as part of the university’s project of mapping all its qualifications to the National Framework of Qualifications, the outreach programmes were mapped to Level 7 and the progression routes confined to entry into Level 8 (BA/BSocSc) programmes. These new progression routes into UCD undergraduate programmes are under development
Innovative Community-University Partnership Model
Reflecting both UCD and HEA policy on social inclusion and increased participation across previously under-represented student cohorts, the Women’s Studies outreach programme has targeted women from areas of designated disadvantage, community activists, lesbian and gay students, Travellers, students with a disability, and others through tailored provision in these areas. Outreach under the Equality Studies Centre has encompassed both professional development courses in equality theory and policy as well as specific courses involving targeted groups, including working class communities, disabled people and, most recently, older people.
The EWI has also engaged in outreach both through the EWI Civil Society Research Scholarship (jointly run with the Combat Poverty Agency) and through extending the EWI Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge training programmes to civil society groups.
The School’s outreach programmes have been run in co-operation with a range of community partners, a model that is widely recognised as optimal for engaging the most educationally excluded and economically disadvantaged. Equality Studies programmes have been delivered in conjunction with 10 national and 7 Greater Dublin Area partners. Women’s Studies outreach has involved 21 different Community Partners including 12 from the Greater Dublin Area.
Evaluations of both programmes have highlighted their effectiveness and value. Research funded through Education Equality Initiative and the Gender Equality Unit of the Department of Education and Science has highlighted the success of the Women’s Studies community/university partnership model and the need for mainstreaming of outreach community initiatives within higher education. This research has concluded that the programme has resulted in highly significant outcomes in relation to further education, training and employment among communities that have traditionally been extremely marginalised. Similarly independent evaluations of the Equality Studies programmes (Kenny, 2005 & 2007) emphasized the value of the programmes and concluded that they were models of good practice. In 2004, t he Northern Ireland Civic Forum on Educational Disadvantage selected the Equality Studies Outreach Certificate as a model of good practice in higher education (the only programme in the south of Ireland) for the NI Civic Forum’s Life-long Learning research project.
In 2005 the HEA revised its policy for funding access and has given universities responsibility for developing their own access routes. It was intended that “the University take steps over the medium term to resource course provision within the ’Adult and Mature Learner’ strand from within the core budget” (HEA 2005). At the time of writing, neither the HEA nor UCD have committed sufficient funding to allow our outreach programmes to continue at their previous level of activity.
