Department of Education urged to streamline grant schemes

THE Department of Education has been urged to end delays on the announcement of grant schemes.

The call came from leaders of city and county Vocational Education Committees (VECs), which are to take over the running of third-level grants from next year. They currently handle about two-thirds of the 60,000 annual applications for student grants but will take over the remainder from county councils next year.

The annual congress of the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA), the umbrella body of the 33 VECs, heard that uncertainty was created every year by delays from the Department of Education.

Barra O’Briain, chief executive of Co Cork VEC, called for a date to be set by which the department should release details of grant amounts and income thresholds for qualifying students every year.

“The uncertainty and delay issuing these criteria cause problems every year,” he said.

“This is most unjust to administrative staff and particularly unfair on students awaiting grants. It often maligns the integrity of the VEC to be able to deliver grants on time to students.”

Technical difficulties have delayed the legislation promised by Education Minister Mary Hanafin last year to transfer the operation of all third-level grants to the VECs.

Co Dublin VEC delegate Don Tipping said it had been hoped they would take over the running of the grants this year when it was announced in summer 2006.

“We thought the department had all the work prepared but we’ve had to drag them through the transfer process and the IT aspect of the new scheme won’t be ready before 2009,” he said.

IVEA president Mary Bohan called on Ms Hanafin to approve the extra staff needed by VECs to deal with the extra applications they will have to process.

Ms Bohan also called for an end to the inclusion of SSIA income to determine eligibility for student grants and for a sliding scale of support where families cross certain income thresholds.

“It’s unfair that a family with an income of €18,000, with two children going to college would get the top-up grant of €6,540 but if that went up to €19,000 they would lose the top-up,” she said.