Written answers

Tuesday, 25 November 2014

Department of Education and Skills

International Students

Photo of Ruth CoppingerRuth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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481. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will report on the work being done by her Department to find alternative course places for students affected by the closure of English language schools as a result of their courses no longer being approved by her Department. [43829/14]

Photo of Jan O'SullivanJan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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As the Deputy will be aware, a number of private colleges have closed in 2014. The first priority of both the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Justice and Equality has been to find a reasonable accommodation for genuine students affected by those closures. This accommodation must have regard to the fact that these colleges were private bodies with no relationship to the State. The Department of Justice and Equality acted rapidly to bring reassurance to students regarding their immigration status.

On 21 May 2014 the Minister for Education and Skills and the Minister for Justice and Equality announced the establishment of a Task Force on Students Affected by the Closure of Private Colleges. The Task Force worked closely with the representative bodies of the high-quality private sector providers and with student representatives to develop solutions that could provide reasonable accommodation for students impacted by the closures who were not covered by learner protection arrangements.

The Report of the Task Force, which I published together with the Minister for Justice and Equality on 2nd September, sets out the arrangements for reasonable accommodation which have been put in place by the high-quality private sector English language and higher education colleges. Those arrangements are scalable and allow affected students the opportunity to take up an alternative arrangement at significantly discounted rates. In addition to those arrangements, the Task Force also established a website, www.studenttaskforce.ie, which sets out relevant information for students.

In addition, we also announced robust regulatory reforms of the international education sector on that date. The purpose of those reforms is to protect the educational and consumer interests of genuine international students, to tackle abuse of the labour market and the immigration regime, and to safeguard the strong international reputation of high-quality Irish education providers.

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