The Government is in discussions with Dublin Business School (DBS) to resolve an issue where students enrolled in its social care courses would be unable to register as social care workers after graduating.
Students had been told that the college had withdrawn its application to CORU, the regulator for health and social care professionals, for the required accreditation for the degrees after it became apparent that the application would not be successful.
This means around 80 students who had anticipated being able to register to work as social care workers after graduating would no longer be able to do so.
Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris has intervened to ask officials from his department and other departments to engage with DBS.
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A department spokeswoman said “all relevant parties have been working to identify a way forward for students. We expect the college to communicate with students shortly”.
It is understood department officials are hopeful the accreditation issue may be resolved in the coming days.
The Applied Social Care course was established by DBS in 2018 and received validation by the Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) and had been in the process of seeking approval from CORU.
In a letter to DBS on Wednesday, students on the courses criticised the college’s “continuing failure to keep us informed about what is going on”. The letter said students were “very stressed” by the situation and tired of being “kept in the dark”.
The students asked whether the college was considering funding those affected studying elsewhere, or providing compensation to the students.
In response, Tony Murphy, academic dean, said DBS was “trying to find a solution” so the course could receive CORU approval and graduates would be able to register as social care workers.
“We have put options to CORU and we have had a number of discussions with QQI and with representatives of the Department of Further and Higher Education,” he said.
Earlier this month, students received an email from the school stating the current programmes “will not be included as approved qualifications by CORU’s registration board”, meaning graduates could not register as social care workers.
The letter said DBS was “currently working on revisions to these programmes for future approval by both QQI and CORU”.
A second email told students although the programme in DBS was “designed and mapped to the CORU standards of proficiencies, the CORU board did not deem the programme as sufficiently meeting their requirements to be listed as an approved qualification at this time”.
The college described the circumstances as “unprecedented” in the email to students.
