Project
Based in the KBS, the CAA provides after school courses (including animation, experimental science, & zoology) to children who might never before have considered attending university. Local teachers identify school children whose academic talents they are anxious to encourage. The programme is designed to encourage these students to be more confident about their abilities and to fulfil their educational potential in both second and third level. Our idea is change students’ functioning, agency and capabilities in terms of life, bodily health, bodily integrity, senses, imagination, thought, emotions, practical reason, affiliation, play, and control over one’s environment. Each CAA course is designed to further many of these central capabilities. We aim to provide educational opportunities for students from disadvantaged areas both inside and outside the school environment.
The CAA approach is very different from the standard economic theory underpinning the state’s role in education, which suggests that the state should educate everyone to a certain level because the returns to society of everyone being able to read, write, do basic mathematics, understand history and geography etc are much higher than if only those who could afford to educate their children received such a basic level of training. A society of people where a large fraction cannot read the directions on a medicine bottle is not going to be very coherent or developed. The theory behind the CAA is something different. It says that households who don’t have locally accessible exemplars of success, generally don’t even know they are capable of more. The CAA’s objective is to operationalize Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach for the disadvantaged children of Limerick.
This programme is a collaboration between Disney, the Centre for Talented Youth Ireland, Dublin City University, and the Department of Economics, Kemmy Business School, UL. Programme partners include: Limerick's School Completion Officers; UL Access Office; Carambola Foods and 9 Schools in the Community
A key objective is to give these students the opportunity to access their local university and its world class facilities. We promote positive attitudes to creativity, science, and education in the community, as well as encouraging support from the parents and family of our students. The programme concludes with a Graduation Ceremony at the end of each term and family members are strongly encouraged to attend. Since the programme began in 2013, all students beginning the programme have been asked: ‘do you want to go to university? and again at the end. The response rate is 100% and shows a significant impact on children's expectations and the very positive effect we are having within the schools.