Higher education institutions should focus more on teaching outside Ireland than on trying to attract international students to study in the State, Higher Education Minister James Lawless has said.
He was speaking in Hong Kong at the end of a weeklong visit to China. It also brought him to Shanghai and Beijing, where he signed a memorandum of understanding on research co-operation.
“We’re aware that there are challenges in the traditional model of international students coming to Ireland en masse,” Lawless said.
“And while many bring great diversity and skills and knowledge to the system, there are pressures as that model scales in terms of resource consumption, student accommodation ... visas can be problematic at times – all the things that we’re familiar with.”
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He said he was promoting a model already embraced by many Irish third-level institutions that partnered with Chinese colleges to offer qualifications that are recognised in China and the European Union.
Lawless said Ireland had insufficient accommodation for the existing cohort of Irish students in higher education.
The Minister also said he was pressing in pre-budget negotiations for an expansion of eligibility criteria for help with student fees.
He said that families with more than one student in higher education should enjoy a higher income threshold than the current limit of €120,000 to qualify for a €500 payment from the State.
“Some people might say that’s very generous, families with six-figure earnings don’t need support. But, actually, if you look at it, that’s actually very much a middle-income family now in many cases,” he said.
After meeting costs such as mortgage and childcare, “paying student fees on top of that out of a gross salary is a stretch and is a challenge”, Lawless said.
