Results 9,761-9,780 of 45,510 for speaker:Simon Harris

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Third Level Fees (24 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are governed by the Universities Act 1997, the Institutes of Technologies Acts 1992 to 2006 and the Technological Universities Act 2018. Within the meaning of these Acts, HEIs are autonomous bodies and are responsible for their own day-to-day management and operational affairs including dealing with policy and procedure in relation to fee collection or fee...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Education and Training Provision (24 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: I propose to take Questions Nos. 1150 and 1151 together. The Human Capital Initiative (HCI) programme was announced as part of Budget 2019, with a primary objective of underpinning the provision of additional capacity across the Higher Education Sector to meet priority skill needs for enterprise. It aims to increase capacity in higher education in focused programmes designed to meet priority...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Third Level Education (24 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: There is no specific disability category for data collection purposes  for learners with dyslexia in either higher or further education. Data is not specifically collected on the number of students with dyslexia in further education but it falls under the broader category of 'Learning, Remembering and Concentrating”. 4,300 students in Further...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Student Universal Support Ireland (24 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: Under the Student Grant Scheme, grant assistance is available to eligible students attending an approved course in an approved institution who meet the terms and conditions of funding, including those relating to residency, means, nationality and previous academic attainment.  The decision on eligibility for a student grant is a matter, in the first instance, for SUSI to determine....

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Project Ireland 2040 (24 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: Funding of €2.08m was approved to support an upgrade of the roof and other building fabric at the GMIT Castlebar campus in 2018. This recognised the health and safety challenge posed by the roof condition and responded to a recommendation of the Working Group on Developing a Sustainable Plan for the Mayo Campus of Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology.  ...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Regional Development (24 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: Allocation for the Regional Skills Fora subhead is as follows:  2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 Allocation € 1,100,000 1,000,000 1,236,000 1,636,000 1,767,000 This provision covers the cost of salary and associated costs of the network of nine Regional Skills Fora Managers,...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: National Training Fund (24 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: National Training Fund (NTF) expenditure includes an allocation for enterprise focused higher education provision. The purpose of the NTF Enterprise Focused provision is to provide skills-related recurrent funding in support of higher education programmes that are particularly oriented towards meeting labour market needs. The full and partial NTF funding of specific programmes, previously...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Third Level Admissions (24 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: In order to help mitigate the impact of the changes to the grading system in 2020 I announced the creation of an additional 2,225 places on high-demand courses in Higher Education Institutions. These places were provided in order ensure that as many students as possible could be accommodated on a course of their choice, given the unprecedented circumstances they faced. The subject areas...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Student Support Schemes (24 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: While Ireland is on Level 5 of the Plan for Living with COVID all further and higher education institutions will deliver the majority of their classes online with only essential activities held on site.  While it is appreciated that the COVID impacts are disappointing for students who had hoped to have as much time on campus as possible, these measures are necessary to support halting...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Expenditure (24 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 presented unique challenges across the Higher Education and Further Education Sectors. Early on, a review was conducted by my Department in consultation with the Higher Education Authority and Institutes, Further Education and Training stakeholders to ascertain the impact of the crisis on the sectors. Following on from this review €216m of...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Administrative Arrangements (24 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: The only applicable fines, charges or bills issued directly by the Department relate to Freedom of Information costs which can be paid via a cheque or bank transfer. In addition, public sector employees paid by the Department through the National Shared Service Office have the option to have 3rd party charges deducted from their pay and forwarded onto the...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 26 — Education (Revised)
Vote 45 — Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Revised) (23 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to it as part of its consideration of the Department’s Revised Estimates. I am accompanied today by the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, who has responsibility for skills and further education and by officials from the Department. I am conscious that I have only five minutes to deliver my opening statement so I will be very...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 26 — Education (Revised)
Vote 45 — Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Revised) (23 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh. I will try to take the questions in sequence. The year-on-year movement for higher education is skewed due to the temporary Covid funding in 2020. Of the €216 million allocated to my Department for Covid in 2020, €202 million was allocated to higher education. Removing Covid from the 2020 and the 2021 figures shows that the higher education...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 26 — Education (Revised)
Vote 45 — Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Revised) (23 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: It tends to be a demand-led scheme. We will seek clarity from SFI that there is nothing further behind that. There is certainly no funding reason as to why there would be a decline in those numbers. We are increasing our level of funding in the research area and we are also increasing funding support to PhD students through stipends.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 26 — Education (Revised)
Vote 45 — Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Revised) (23 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: Yes, we are expecting that later this year. We have already started to engage with the steering group we have in place in respect of the implementation of a national access plan. It is fair to say that when we look at the existing access plan, we see improvements in pretty much all areas. There is an area that we have not seen the improvement we would wish to see, namely, that relating to...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 26 — Education (Revised)
Vote 45 — Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Revised) (23 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: I do not have a specific date for when I am due to receive it but I will seek an update and revert to the Deputy. It is due this year. I do not believe there could be a more timely moment to get this study. We will have the review of the SUSI, the national access plan and the learnings from Covid. We will receive it this year and I will try to find a specific timeframe and I will revert...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 26 — Education (Revised)
Vote 45 — Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Revised) (23 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Ó Cathasaigh, I was trying to write his questions down. I thank the Deputy for the comments on equality budgeting. We are very happy to provide the committee with any further information it might require. It is an area that is definitely worthy of some additional scrutiny also. On the TU agenda, which the Deputy is very passionate about and especially with regard to...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 26 — Education (Revised)
Vote 45 — Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Revised) (23 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: I would love to see antigen testing used. I will defer to our scientists and medical experts on this, but we have already seen some universities use their own initiative in relation to it. Antigen testing is part of our national toolkit in the fight against Covid. In my view, based on conversations I have had with people more knowledgeable than I am, a college environment could be a very...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 26 — Education (Revised)
Vote 45 — Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Revised) (23 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: There is no doubt there is a gap in funding. The scale of that remains to be fully determined through engagement my Department is having with the Higher Education Authority, HEA, and the education institutions. We have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of overseas students. From memory, we have seen about 11,000 compared with a figure of up to 35,000 or 40,000 in previous years. It...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 26 — Education (Revised)
Vote 45 — Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Revised) (23 Mar 2021)

Simon Harris: I will have to get the Deputy a breakdown on that. I do not have that information available. The Deputy is trying to get under the bonnet to find out whether funded places were not taken up or funding was provided that did not match with places. That is highly unlikely considering we had a very intensive engagement with the universities and institutes of technology to try to match the...