Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is not alone an issue for Ireland. It is an issue across the world where private institutions, primarily English language schools, set up purporting to offer a high standard of education when, in fact, upon scrutiny they offer a poor standard and few supports for students who find themselves in that difficult situation.

The quality mark will be put in place by the end of this year. Education in Ireland has been working exceptionally hard over the past three years, and travelling abroad. Indeed, I have travelled abroad with them on a number of occasions with the third level institutions, colleges, universities and institutes of technology. Every time we travel abroad, we stress repeatedly the exceptionally high quality of the education being provided by the vast majority of institutions in this country.

At the end of this year, we will have a quality mark that we can stand over and under which an institution will have that credibility and build for itself a strong reputation for the provision of exceptionally high quality education. We will work to ensure that any young person who is contemplating coming to study in this country must protect himself or herself by ensuring he or she does not subscribe or attend an institution or college that does not have that quality mark. I am confident we will be able to build that brand internationally so every educational support and opportunity that is offered to young people entering this country will be of that exceptionally high standard and that over time those who cannot operate to those high standards will simply be pushed out of business.

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