SOAR FOR ACCESS

The National Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education 2015-2019 (National Access Plan) was published in December 2015. The vision of the National Access Plan is to ensure that the student body entering, participating and completing higher education reflects the diversity and social mix of Ireland ™s population. The Department of Education and Skills established the Programme for Access To Higher Education (PATH) Fund to support the implementation of the plan. PATH Strand 3 supports the objective of developing regional and community partnership strategies for increasing access to higher education by specified groups. Regional clusters of higher education institutions (HEIs) were invited to submit proposals under PATH 3; in response, the South Cluster devised the SOAR Project. Initially funded for a three-year phase (2018-2021), PATH 3 was extended for a further three years (2021-2024) by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The fund is..