Professor Michelle Norris:

Certainly in UCD, our student body is about 90% female and we are committed to attracting a more diverse cohort of students, including men, who represent diversity in our world, including in the faculty. We are also committed to trying to facilitate larger numbers of black and ethnic minority students as Ireland is diversifying and also as the client group in social work is diversifying. That is a concern for us.

We interview our students for entry into the programme and we have a very rigorous interview programme, including interview by a member of faculty and a social work practitioner. We have a written application form and further testing on the day when they come for interview so the students we get through that programme are very committed and of a very high quality. We have a very small drop-out rate. Out of 100, I would say we probably have one a year and we have a very small failure rate of one to two per year out of 100. Where there is a fail, it is generally on the placement component. The management of that is obviously very challenging, which is another reason to try to formalise arrangements.