Wealthy parents‘buy disability diagnoses to get college places for their children’
Special access schemes are of greater benefit to those able to pay for assessment, claims principal of DEIS school
WEALTHY parents have been accused of using a scheme for students with disabilities to make sure their children get into university.
It comes as new Central Applications Office (CAO) figures show around one in 7.5 people who have applied to third-level courses this year consider themselves as having a disability, compared to around one in 12 applicants in 2016.
The DARE (Disability Access Route to Educatio) scheme allows for people with certain disabilities to access college courses with fewer Leaving Cert points than their peers and has helped thousands of deserving people gain access to third-level education.
But a principal at a DEIS (for disadvantgaged students) secondary school this week said the scheme could now be ‘contributing to inequity in third-level education’, with private diagnoses more accessible to pupils from wealthier backgrounds.
‘The scheme is open to abuse by parents’
The principal said the scheme is ‘not regulated enough’ and is ‘open to abuse by parents who have the money to buy educational reports’.
DARE covers 12 disabilities, from physical impairments and dyslexia to autism, attention deficit disorder and mental health issues, such as depression and eating disorders.
However the principal said illnesses such as depression are ‘hard to prove’ and ‘can be signed off by a doctor [and] can be used to get DARE’.
‘Overall I would say a system set up in good faith to genuinely help those who needed it is now contributing to the inequity in thirdlevel education,’ said the school head, who did not wish to be identified.
Stuart Wilson, a child and adolescent psychotherapist who is founder of Zestlife Therapeutic Services, said such inequity is the result of ‘a significant government and societal issue’ in that public mental health services – such as the Government’s
National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) – are ‘so poor’. He told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘I’m hearing of parents who can’t afford to go through the private system but they have to because the waiting list would be two years before they’d get an educational assessment that might even qualify them for DARE.
‘Or if it’s a psychological issue – so a clinical assessment rather than an educational assessment, maybe depression or anxiety or something – and they’ve got to go through a psychiatric application for DARE, they could be waiting two years.’
According to the principal, only one pupil from his school managed to get assessed through the NEPS last year.
Mr Wilson believes extra pressures on schoolchildren are driving up the numbers applying for DARE. He said the real number of kids struggling in school because of issues such as anxiety could be closer to one in four, and that clinics are ‘absolutely bursting’. ‘There’s significant pressure put on kids by natural educational inflation over the years, where every kid should have a degree… if you don’t have a Masters, you’ll go nowhere in life almost.
‘I think there’s massive pressure that’s being put on kids, put on teachers, put on parents, to get their children to third level education, which is natural educational inflation that’s not realistic and it’s very difficult for kids.’
Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin, Brendan Kelly, also sounded a warning about the system.
He told the MoS: ‘Most countries find that when a diagnosis of any sort is needed (e.g. disability, mental illness) in order to get access to support, rates of diagnosis rise.
‘This is helpful if it connects people with the supports they need to achieve their potential, but it is always best when such supports are based on individual needs, and not only on diagnostic categories, which inevitably apply to different people in different ways and to different degrees. While some teenagers have conditions such as anxiety and depression that need mental health treatment, others would likely benefit more from more general supports and skillsbuilding outside of a health framework.
‘Everyone who suffers needs support, but not everyone who suffers is ill.’
Prof Kelly, who is also consultant psychiatrist at Tallaght University Hospital, said that while the number of DARE applications is a ‘significant increase’, it is ‘almost impossible to know how much of the rise is correcting past underdiagnosis and finally providing people with the opportunities they deserve’.
Of the 76,899 applications received by the CAO by February 1 this year, 10,256 wished to be considered for the DARE scheme. Applications through DARE have increased every year since it was set up, even as the total number of CAO applications remains steady.
In 2021, there were 7,839 DARE applicants from 79,176 CAO applications. This increased by over 11% in 2022 to 8,713, even as the number of total applications fell slightly.
And in 2023 there was an almost 14% increase in DARE applications to 9,913, despite total CAO applications being almost identical to the year before.
The 2024 number represents a 3.5% increase on last year, even though the total number of applicants fell by around 1.5%, and is well over double the 4,498 who applied to DARE in 2015.
The CAO, the Irish Universities Association (IUA) or the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science were unable to provide a breakdown of where DARE applicants come from for any of the last five years. The IUA said it will publish these figures next month.
‘Not everyone who suffers is ill’