School principal asks minister to make exception for talented asylum seeker student

She’s been living here for the past two years and this week she scored top marks in her Leaving Certificate — the highest of any pupil at her school — but annual fees of €25,000 threaten her ambition to attend college here.

Anna Kern, aged 18, is Ukrainian and lives at a direct provision centre for asylum seekers at Knockalisheen on the outskirts of Limerick City. As an asylum seeker she was barred from taking the HPAT test so she can’t study medicine. Anna now wants to study physiotherapy at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin. As a non-EU citizen, she faces annual fees of €25,000.

Anna and her principal at Limerick’s Coláiste Nano Nagle, Marion Cummins, hope to discuss her plight today with local TD and Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan.