Written answers

Thursday, 17 June 2021

Department of Education and Skills

Departmental Schemes

Photo of Rose Conway-WalshRose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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382. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost to the Exchequer of restoring the grant adjacency rate to 24km; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32788/21]

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The student maintenance grant is a contribution towards the living costs of a student. It is not intended to cover the full costs of attending college. The student grant scheme does however, provide for different levels of maintenance support, depending on means. Grants are also provided at adjacent and non-adjacent rates. The higher non-adjacent rates are intended to provide additional support to those students who may be living away from home.

Budget 2011 provided for a number of student grant measures which came into effect for the 2011/12 academic year, including the change in the assessment of the qualifying distance criterion for the non-adjacent rate of grant from 24 kilometres to 45 kilometres.

The 24km distance criterion was originally set in 1968 and had not been updated in more than 40 years. Since then, significant improvements have taken place in the road and rail network and it is considered that the revised distance criteria is more consistent with the type of distances that students may legitimately be expected to commute to college.

The current qualifying distance of 45km for the higher non-adjacent rate of student grant takes into account a reasonable radius within which students may commute on a daily basis.

The cost of reversing the change to the distance criteria in the Student Grant, is estimated to be in the region of €28.5m.The Programme for Government contains commitments to, among other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. On foot of these commitments approval was given to commence a review of the Student Grant Scheme which is well underway and is being conducted by external consultants. It is anticipated that the SUSI review will be completed later this year and will inform policy priorities for the next Estimates process and future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy.

Photo of Rose Conway-WalshRose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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383. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost to the Exchequer of extending the SUSI grant to all level 6 further education and training courses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32789/21]

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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According to most recent statistics available from the Department of Education, there were 9,486 full time Level 6* Post Leaving Certificate students (2018/19), while the total full time students registered for craft apprenticeship was 16,142 for the 2019/20 academic year. The average maintenance grant payable to a further education student is €1,995.

The estimated cost of extending the SUSI support for PLC Level 6 and training courses is €51.13m.

*Level 6 is the second year of study, as these students would have completed a one year Level 5 PLC course. There were 41,432 FET enrolments at level 5 for the 2018/19 academic year.

The Programme for Government contains commitments to, among other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. On foot of these commitments approval was given to commence a review of the Student Grant Scheme. The review is being conducted by external consultants. It is anticipated that the SUSI review will be completed later this year and will inform policy priorities for the next Estimates process and future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy.

Source: www.education.ie/en/Publications/Statistics/Key-Statistics/education-indicators-for-ireland-2020.pdf.

Photo of Rose Conway-WalshRose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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384. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost to the Exchequer of extending the SUSI support for postgraduate courses to cover the full cost of fees; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32790/21]

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The latest statistics from the HEA indicate that in the academic year 2018/19 there were 24,855 full-time post graduate students at approved institutions. Most EU and EEA students can expect the cost of fees for a year offull time study to be between €4,000 and €9,000. Based on an average cost of €6,500 the estimated cost of extending the SUSI support for post-graduate courses to cover the full cost of fees would be in the region of €161,557,000.

The Programme for Government contains commitments to, amongst other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. The review of the Student Grant Scheme is underway with over 250 submissions received via the public consultation process and over 9,000 survey responses were received through an online survey process. It is anticipated that the SUSI review will be completed later this year and will inform policy priorities for the next Estimates process and future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy. At this point I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the review to indicate when any proposed changes will come into effect.

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