Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 842: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if she will eradicate variations in the way that local administrations administer the student assistance fund and the millennium partnership; and if she will draft and implement overarching guidelines and best practise. [14787/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The student assistance fund is available to students experiencing particular or unexpected hardship during their course of study. The fund is allocated on a per capita basis to publicly-funded higher education institutions. In 2005-06, 35 institutions received funding totalling €5.8 million. More than 12,000 students benefited from the fund during 2004-05.

Until 2005, the amount of funding available for the access funds, including the student assistance fund, varied annually, depending on the level of demand for the top-up maintenance grant. The decision in 2004 to separate expenditure on the top-up maintenance grant from other access funding programmes has ended these variations. Students apply for the student assistance fund through their student services office or to the access officer within their institution.

The millennium partnership fund established in 2000 also provides community-based funding. It supports retention and participation among under-represented groups of students in further or higher education and is available to students in area partnerships and community groups which participate in the local development social inclusion programme or LDSIP.

Application for millennium funding is made annually by organisations through Pobal Ltd., the State company established to promote social inclusion, reconciliation and equality in Ireland and which has administered the fund since it was established. In 2005, a total of €1.89 million was allocated to 57 community groups and partnerships. In 2004-05, the latest year for which figures are available, approximately 3,750 students in higher and further education benefited from the fund.

The national office for equity of access to higher education within the Higher Education Authority recently completed a review of funding to achieve equity of access to higher education. The review process involved qualitative and quantitative data research, wide-ranging consultation, the publication of a discussion document, submissions and focus group meetings. This review was published by the national access office and launched by me in December 2005. Included in this review were the student assistance fund and the millennium partnership fund. Local variations in funding at institutional and/or community level is one of the six key issues for resolution that the review identifies. The review sets out the context in which current variations in the approach to the administration of the student assistance fund and the millennium partnership fund have arisen.

The review recommends that guidelines on local funding should be agreed and implemented so that decisions on which students receive funding are clear and transparent. The review goes on to recommend that community and college administrators, facilitated by the national access office, should together review and agree guidelines for the student assistance and millennium funds to ensure that there is a consistent and fair approach nationally, so that students in some communities and colleges are not disadvantaged in comparison with others. In addition to agreeing guidelines for each fund, ways of ensuring the most effective interaction and use of each should also be addressed.

The national access office has commenced work on implementing the recommendations of the funding review, including the above recommendation. I envisage that the office will, in this context, develop and implement overarching guidelines pertaining to the operation of the student assistance fund and the millennium partnership fund.