Ms Heather Cousins:

Cross-Border student mobility is important to both students and the tertiary education institutions they attend. The Department for the Economy therefore recognises the need to support such enrolments. Each academic year, many students from Northern Ireland avail of offers of study in further or higher education in the Republic of Ireland, with similar student traffic taking place in the opposite direction. I thank the joint committee for the opportunity to discuss its report and to share with members the information the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland publishes on this matter.

On higher education, figures from the UK's Higher Education Statistics Agency indicate an overall decline in the total number of both part-time and full-time students from the Republic of Ireland enrolled at Northern Ireland's higher education institutions, from 3,515 in 2011-12 to 2,095 in 2016-17. However, since 2016-17, that steady decline has plateaued, albeit with minor year-on-year variations, with the most recent figures indicating 2,170 enrolments in 2020-21. As a proportion of total enrolments at Northern Ireland's higher education institutions, the number of students from the Republic of Ireland dropped from 6% in 2011-12 to 3% in 2020-21. However, if we look at full-time Republic of Ireland student enrolments only, while the trend is similar to that for the total number of enrolments of students from the Republic of Ireland in that there was a steady decline, there has been something of a post-Brexit recovery. Of the 2,170 Republic of Ireland students enrolled at Northern Ireland's higher education institutions in 2020-21, more than half were enrolled at Ulster University. Almost two thirds of those were female.

Regarding higher education mobility in the opposite direction, data sourced from the HEA indicate that the number of Northern Ireland students enrolling at higher education institutions in the Republic of Ireland has increased yearly from 1,160 in 2016-17 to 1,625 in 2020-21. One of the barriers to cross-Border higher education enrolments is the differing admissions systems. While Northern Ireland is aligned with the rest of the UK in using the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, UCAS, for admissions to our higher education institutions, the CAO manages the process in the Republic of Ireland. This naturally leads to some misalignment in the timing of admissions stages. This was exacerbated in the past few years due to the impact of the Covid pandemic and the delays it created in publishing results.

Regarding further education, the committee will be aware that significant numbers of students from the Republic of Ireland enrol on courses in further education colleges in Northern Ireland. The flow of students from Ireland to Northern Ireland to study in further education colleges is disproportionate relative to student flows in the other direction. Following Brexit, due to the common travel area arrangements, students from Ireland continue to be eligible to access further education on terms no less favourable than was previously the case. However, there has been a significant decline in student numbers from the Republic of Ireland in recent years. In 2015-16, which was the year prior to Brexit, 2,207 students at Northern Ireland further education colleges were from the Republic of Ireland, representing 2.7% of the entire Northern Ireland further education student population. In 2021-22, this number dropped to 1,197 students, representing 1.9% of Northern Ireland's further education student population. As has always been the case, the vast majority of these students - 68% - attend North West Regional College. It is unfortunate that there is a lack of available data on Northern Irish students enrolled in further education colleges in the Republic of Ireland. This is something my departmental colleagues would be interested in resolving.

I welcome the opportunity to engage with the committee to identify the reasons for the decline in enrolments, identify any further barriers that might be the cause and look at steps that could be taken to support cross-Border flows in both the further and higher education sectors. I hope it goes without saying that any recommendations for policy change in Northern Ireland may be impacted by the current lack of an Executive and will be subject to the views of any incoming Minister.