FG: Foreign student plan worth €900m yearly

DOUBLING the number of foreign students in our colleges could reap an additional €900 million a year and create 6,000 jobs, according to Fine Gael plans announced yesterday.

Their policy document points to a slight drop in international student numbers at Irish third-level colleges last year but aspires to raising the overall numbers in further and higher education, private colleges and English language institutions to 80,000 over five years.

To achieve this, party education spokesman Brian Hayes said Fine Gael would appoint a dedicated minister of state in the Department of Education with a €50 million budget to target students from a handful of world regions.

The strategy would involve a fast-track education visa system to eradicate current difficulties faced by some overseas students, developing English language courses directly aimed at prospective higher education students and making Ireland a specialised centre of excellence for English language teacher training.

Mr Hayes said most higher education colleges have made poor efforts to bring fee-paying students from outside the EU to their campuses, but that it has not been helped by Government initiatives.

“They were going to set up a statutory body but we have enough quangos. This should be organised from within the Department of Education under a minister of state working solely on this issue,” he said.

“Apart from University College Cork, where 13% of its students are from overseas, the sector has had no co-ordinated approach to this. I think rebranding the institutes of technology under a national technological university could also help them up their game,” he said.

Of almost 35,000 international students in Ireland last year, 13,500 were attending higher education colleges but more than 90% of those were registered in universities. The English language training sector had almost 10,500 students, of whom almost 7,000 were Brazilian or Chinese, with a further 9,000 non-EU students on further education courses.

Mr Hayes said any increase in their numbers would be in addition to expanded places for a growing number of school leavers here over the coming decade, and would not restrict space for Irish students. But the revenue would not be used to replace FG plans for a graduate tax system proposed last year.

“We remain in favour of graduates contributing towards the cost of third level education when they are working but any additional income from overseas students would be used directly for the education system,” he said.

In Washington this week, Taoiseach Brian Cowen launched the Ireland Homecoming Study Programme, through which eight institutes of technology hope to attract children and grandchildren of Irish people to study here with a promise of tuition fees up to 40% lower than those paid by other non-EU students. The plan aims to generate €10 million by bringing more than 500 students here over the next three years.