Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)

Access courses are generally organised by individual institutions and are not approved courses under the terms and conditions of the student grant schemes. The Higher Education Authority recently estimated the number of students currently on full-time Access courses at some 369.

As these are not approved courses, students on Access courses in the 2009-10 academic year would not be in receipt of a student maintenance grant. In addition, progression from an Access course to a degree course is not a continuation of the same course and therefore students progressing from an Access course to an approved course-----

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