Ms Annie Hoey:

I am looking through my papers. In 2010, EUROSTAT did a survey which showed that 53% of students indicated that they work during term-time. Some 35% said it was regularly and 18% said occasionally. Some 65% of full-time students and 85% of part-time students indicated that they worked during term break time. They also have other concerns as students, and work criss-crosses and depends on that. We are led to believe that this was done in 2010. We did a small bit of research last year and believe that the figure could be as high as 75% of students who are now working during term-time. We did a very small sample last year and that came up with 75% indicating that they were working a minimum of 24 hours a week. That is quite a high number of the student population that is working. There is also evidence from the EUROSTAT survey and from our own small sample that once students work over 15 hours a week, their academic performance begins to dramatically decrease. We are looking at between 53% and 75% of students working during term-time.