50 Students Drop Out Per Week Over Funding
50 Students drop out of the Irish Third Level Sector every week, a figure which is equivalent to CIT loosing a class on a weekly basis.
The Student Support Bill was published in 2008 but has yet to be enacted. The past year has seen a financially challenging time for students and the current grants system is in meltdown. Some VECs have indicated that it will be as late as next May before they clear the backlog of grant applications. Despite assurances from the Minister for Education, Batt O’Keefe, it appears that the Student Support Bill has been shelved. CITSU’s Gearóid Buckley has said “Given the current economic climate, it appears unwise not to take this opportunity to streamline a system that is very inefficient. Saving money through the creation of a streamlined grants system should be the education minister’s priority. It seems the Minister is hiding behind the McCarthy Report (An Bord Snip), the report calls for the amalgamation of some VEC’s. It baffles me, the overworked staff in t he grants office are in support of the Student Support Bill and they have assured the department of education that it will create economies which will inevitable save money.”
Then and Now
On 20th February 2006, the Minister for Education and Science announced that under new legislation being brought to the Cabinet, students would be guaranteed to receive their grant cheques early and on time. The Minister admitted that: “Until now, some students faced long delays before receiving their payments but these delays will become a thing of the past.”
Under the promised grants payment system, the Minister stated that late payments would be a thing of the past; students would get a decision on their application within three weeks of the closing date and would receive their grant cheque within a month of starting the college term.
In October 2009, the CIT Students’ Union received a litany of complaints from students and parents regarding the processing of the student maintenance grant application. CITSU have been made aware that some VECs and county councils will not finish processing grant applications, received before the deadline, until March 2010 at the earliest. As a result, thousands of students around Ireland have been forced to defer their college registration until they receive official confirmation that they are eligible for the maintenance grant. Students who are eligible for the grant do not have to pay the college registration fee of €1500 and cannot afford this fee without State assistance. But those who have not registered will not be permitted to sit mid-term examinations or attend laboratory classes or tutorials.
VECS and county councils have experienced 20% more grant applications this year. In 2009, grant forms were only made available on the 23rd of June - just four weeks before the closing date for applications. This late release of forms, combined with the staff moratorium on Higher Education institutes, has caused a meltdown of the student grant system.
Background to the Grant
The Higher Education Maintenance Grant (hereafter the grant) in its current format was introduced in the Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants) Act of 1968 and then reformed in 1978 and 1992.
The reforms and changes made were designed to extend the grant to improve access and to modernise and correct the shortcomings of the system at the time. The reason for the grant’s existence is, and has always been, to widen participation in third level education and to allow people to absorb the opportunity cost of getting an education. Mr. Brian Lenihan Snr, the Minister for Education in 1968, when the grant was introduced, said: “We all realise that in a small country like ours the main assets we have are the skills and talents of our people. I have sufficient faith in our people to believe that we have a great degree of intelligence, skill and talent, and that if we can devise an educational system that can absorb our people to the fullest extent of their abilities, then this surely is a praiseworthy goal for us to seek to achieve, a goal that can bring not only the greatest benefit to the individual but to the community as a whole.”
Gearóid Buckley stated that “Batt and Brian should take some advice from Lenihan Senior, commit to our knowledge based economy and begin a confidence in our youth, which is long overdue. Over the next few months CITSU will fight to ensure the Student Support Bill becomes law, we can’t sustain another year of delayed payments. There maybe three out of five leaving cert students now continuing onto third level education, but with fifty students droping out weekly, this fact is only paying lip service to Batt O’Keekke’s ego and not to the harsh reality.”
50 Students drop out of the Irish Third Level Sector every week, a figure which is equivalent to CIT loosing a class on a weekly basis.
The Student Support Bill was published in 2008 but has yet to be enacted. The past year has seen a financially challenging time for students and the current grants system is in meltdown. Some VECs have indicated that it will be as late as next May before they clear the backlog of grant applications. Despite assurances from the Minister for Education, Batt O’Keefe, it appears that the Student Support Bill has been shelved. CITSU’s Gearóid Buckley has said “Given the current economic climate, it appears unwise not to take this opportunity to streamline a system that is very inefficient. Saving money through the creation of a streamlined grants system should be the education minister’s priority. It seems the Minister is hiding behind the McCarthy Report (An Bord Snip), the report calls for the amalgamation of some VEC’s. It baffles me, the overworked staff in t he grants office are in support of the Student Support Bill and they have assured the department of education that it will create economies which will inevitable save money.”
Then and Now
On 20th February 2006, the Minister for Education and Science announced that under new legislation being brought to the Cabinet, students would be guaranteed to receive their grant cheques early and on time. The Minister admitted that: “Until now, some students faced long delays before receiving their payments but these delays will become a thing of the past.”
Under the promised grants payment system, the Minister stated that late payments would be a thing of the past; students would get a decision on their application within three weeks of the closing date and would receive their grant cheque within a month of starting the college term.
In October 2009, the CIT Students’ Union received a litany of complaints from students and parents regarding the processing of the student maintenance grant application. CITSU have been made aware that some VECs and county councils will not finish processing grant applications, received before the deadline, until March 2010 at the earliest. As a result, thousands of students around Ireland have been forced to defer their college registration until they receive official confirmation that they are eligible for the maintenance grant. Students who are eligible for the grant do not have to pay the college registration fee of €1500 and cannot afford this fee without State assistance. But those who have not registered will not be permitted to sit mid-term examinations or attend laboratory classes or tutorials.
VECS and county councils have experienced 20% more grant applications this year. In 2009, grant forms were only made available on the 23rd of June - just four weeks before the closing date for applications. This late release of forms, combined with the staff moratorium on Higher Education institutes, has caused a meltdown of the student grant system.
Background to the Grant
The Higher Education Maintenance Grant (hereafter the grant) in its current format was introduced in the Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants) Act of 1968 and then reformed in 1978 and 1992.
The reforms and changes made were designed to extend the grant to improve access and to modernise and correct the shortcomings of the system at the time. The reason for the grant’s existence is, and has always been, to widen participation in third level education and to allow people to absorb the opportunity cost of getting an education. Mr. Brian Lenihan Snr, the Minister for Education in 1968, when the grant was introduced, said: “We all realise that in a small country like ours the main assets we have are the skills and talents of our people. I have sufficient faith in our people to believe that we have a great degree of intelligence, skill and talent, and that if we can devise an educational system that can absorb our people to the fullest extent of their abilities, then this surely is a praiseworthy goal for us to seek to achieve, a goal that can bring not only the greatest benefit to the individual but to the community as a whole.”
Gearóid Buckley stated that “Batt and Brian should take some advice from Lenihan Senior, commit to our knowledge based economy and begin a confidence in our youth, which is long overdue. Over the next few months CITSU will fight to ensure the Student Support Bill becomes law, we can’t sustain another year of delayed payments. There maybe three out of five leaving cert students now continuing onto third level education, but with fifty students droping out weekly, this fact is only paying lip service to Batt O’Keekke’s ego and not to the harsh reality.”
Favourite Services
Follow Us:
