Two Tipperary students say the inequalities of the HPAT exam must be addressed by the Government.
Lisa O’Connor who attends the Ursuline in Thurles and Louis Ryan, a student at Rockwell College in Cashel, brought their issues to the Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris in the last number of days.
They say that the exam which is used to assist with the selection of students to go into medicine at third level, doesn’t have many questions that test the ability of someone to become a doctor and is also financially inaccessible to many.
Lisa told Tipp Today that she was lucky to be able to afford the preparation packages, however, she says friends of hers were being negatively impacted due to these costs and she felt the need to raise this in the Dáil.
She says that the preparation materials can cost thousands.
“They can range from €400 to €1500 so depending on the package the most beneficial I suppose would be the €1500 one but I got one for about €800, so obviously it is very expensive but I was really lucky and fortunate to have those opportunities for myself and I might not even get medicine so how would it be expected for someone who has never sat it who has just no sort of equal playing field to go in there and compete against schools who are obviously able to afford that and the people in them.”
Louis also says that one of the things they suggested was greater funding for more disadvantaged schools or students.
“There is very little funding and a couple of the solutions that we suggested to Minister was to further to consider giving school outreach workshops, mentoring programmes and most importantly fostering links with disadvantaged schools and aspiring young students or future doctors.”
