Southeast suffering ongoing ‘brain drain’

HIGHER Education Authority (HEA) figures indicate the southeast region is suffering from an ongoing “brain drain”, a lobby group claimed yesterday.

Some of the highest-achieving school leavers are forced to leave the region to receive a university education, according to the Friends of a University for the South East (FUSE) group.

The HEA statistics for full-time students pursuing university programmes in 2006 to 2007 show 1,321 students with home addresses in Waterford city and county were among 7,012 from the southeast who had left the region to study.