STUDENT leaders have welcomed the announcement by the Minister for Education that, from next autumn, higher education grants will be paid to Irish students studying abroad.
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) said the extension of the grants scheme, revealed in Monday's Irish Times, represented a "vast improvement" in student support and would help ease the pressure on third level places in the Republic.
Ms Breathnach yesterday described the change as a "further positive step to encourage participation in higher education. Up to 6,000 Irish students studying abroad, mostly in Britain, would be eligible to apply for maximum annual grants of £1,600.
Students must be taking a full time, under graduate course over at least two years in an EU state. The courses must be in a publicly funded university or third level institution.
The following courses in other EU states are excluded:
. Post graduate courses;
. Courses in medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine - subject to quotas imposed by the Higher Education Authority - and teacher training;
. Courses in colleges of further and higher education, and colleges akin to private, commercial colleges in Ireland;
. Courses provided in British colleges which are offered in a private college in Ireland and which are validated by the British college.
Surprisingly, paramedical courses in pharmacy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and radiography, where places here are subject to unofficial quotas, will be eligible for grant support.
Already, twice as many Irish pharmacists graduate in the UK as in the Republic and the job market for Irish trained radiographers has been affected by competition from Britain.
