Professor Barbara Dooley:

The higher education institutions have supports in place. If they know students are going to drop out generally they try to support them. The primary issue is to keep them. The question is how we support students to stay connected and continue to progress with their programmes. This is the number one priority. Most institutions where they can, if they have student assistance funds or welfare funds, endeavour to support students as best they can. Again it is about resources. There is a limited pool of resources given to institutions. During the pandemic many of these resources increased significantly. They were significantly reduced this year. The amount of funding to support students in need was dramatically reduced. A greater number of them are probably having to pull out due to economic circumstances. We may have been in a better position to support them last year.