Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Sections 24 and 25 contain provisions to facilitate the introduction of the international education mark, IEM. The IEM will serve both as a quality mark to promote Irish education to international students and as a regulatory tool to underpin the student immigration system. These amendments will serve to limit the scope of the IEM to those providers and bodies with whom QQI will have a direct regulatory relationship. Associated providers are providers who enter into arrangements with listed awarding bodies to offer their awards in the State. In these cases, the quality assurance oversight of these providers will be conducted by the listed awarding bodies. As a result, QQI will not have direct oversight of this element of the activities of the associated providers. As the IEM will be utilised as a key facet of the student immigration system, regulatory oversight of provider activity is key. These associated providers who wish to have access to the IEM can get such access by directly engaging with QQI or a designated awarding body.