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Strengthening Access and Inclusion: Higher Education's Engagement in Social Mentoring Roundtable Discussion
Date Released: 6 September 2024
Strengthening Access and Inclusion: Higher Education's Engagement in Social Mentoring
Roundtable Discussion
Thursday 19th September
As part of the University of Galway’s SDG week, this lunchtime event to shared experiences and ideas regarding how HEI’s can support mentoring for social inclusion. Key questions discussed included:
- How have Universities engaged with social mentoring programmes?
- What are the key benefits and challenges associated with Higher Education engagement in social mentoring?
- How can we strengthen the capacity of Higher Education Institutions and community partners to support social mentoring?
Panellists:
- Celia Keenaghan, Education Mentoring Co-ordinator, ATU / West / North West Cluster
- Mary Lynch, Mentoring Manager, Foróige
- Oscar Prieto-Flores, University of Girona, Spain
- Daniel Savery, Widening Participation Officer, Access Centre, University of Galway
- Lorraine Tansey, Studentvolunteer.ie Programme Manager
Moderator: Professor Caroline McGregor, Director, Institute for Lifecourse & Society, University of Galway
Equity of access to higher education is a global objective, with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 setting a target of ‘equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university” by 2030 (UN, 2015). In Ireland and internationally, mentoring has emerged as a key intervention to support students in accessing, participating, and progressing in their journey to and through higher education. Mentoring in this context can be understood as a process that facilitates someone with lived experience (mentor) to provide guidance, support and knowledge in a way that allows another person (mentee) to thrive over time.
This event was organised as part of University of Galway SDG week and the Ment4EU consortium meeting. Ment4EU – Mentoring for Social Inclusion in Europe: Sharing Knowledge and Building Capacity is a three-year project that aims to ensure that higher education can keep abreast of the growing significance of social mentoring in policy and practice across nations. Ment4EU is funded by Erasmus + KA220-HED and led by a consortium of universities from Austria, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain.
