Third-level students from across Northern Ireland protested at Stormont last week about their problems with debt and poverty, writes Harry Browne

In a rain-soaked demonstration on Tuesday afternoon, organised by the North's student movement, NUS-USI, the students called on the Northern Ireland Executive to secure more money from the British treasury to abolish tuition fees and restore grants and benefits.

Derek Alcorn of the Northern Ireland Citizens Advice Bureaux said: "The current provisions actively encourage indebtedness, not just for luxury goods but for essential expenditure."

NUS-USI convenor Brian Slevin said: "Access to education should be based on academic ability, not the ability to pay." He added: "Our students deserve a decent standard of living, not a life in debt."

The Minister for Employment and Learning, Carmel Hanna MLA, accused student leaders of "a degree of selectivity" in the data they chose to present, and said "very real changes" had taken place in the North over the last year. She cited a new £65 million sterling package introduced as a result of a "student support review".

Hanna said improvements had been targeted at students with particular social needs, including the introduction of childcare support, the raising of the fee contribution threshold, a substantial increase in "hardship funding" and the re-introduction of grants for students from poorer backgrounds.

NUS-USI pointed out that, across Britain and Northern Ireland, there had been a fall of almost 10 per cent in the number of adult learners in higher education since 1998.