For several years now Trinity College Dublin, along with other third-level colleges, has worked with government to bring small numbers of students out of Gaza and on to Irish campuses to continue their education in safety, funded by a variety of scholarships.
The numbers have never been huge. In the first year (2024-2025) Trinity welcomed three postgraduate students who managed to leave Gaza when it was still possible. Last year we welcomed 15 undergraduate and postgraduate students to courses ranging from global health, energy science, intercultural studies, engineering, business and sustainability, international and comparative law.
They are a tiny proportion of our community. For context, Trinity’s student population is 23,000 of which about 5,000 are international (non-EU) students. Each arrival was preceded by weeks or months of planning, assisting with academic applications, sourcing funding and then the uncertainty of visa applications and decisions, waiting to see if other permissions to travel would be issued. Finally, we had the evacuation.
To a person, these students did not just meet the admission requirements but were academically excellent. They surpassed all expectations, despite the transition to a new country, a new community and living with, as one of our students describes it, “survivor’s guilt”.
Our experience has been replicated across colleges and universities across the country, which have raised close to €4 million for 2025-2026 to ensure these students would not be a cost to the State. As President Catherine Connolly noted when the students visited Áras an Uachtaráin recently, we are indebted to these students for their spirit, their determination and their perseverance.
Hence, we prepared to welcome a further nine students from Gaza for the next academic year. We worked to secure full scholarships through various routes, ensuring the students would meet the financial requirements for applying for and receiving international student visas.
We met our obligations to Article VII (Section VII) of the Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education in the European Region, to which Ireland is a signatory. This requires each state party to take “all feasible and reasonable steps” within its education system and legal framework to establish procedures that fairly and promptly assess whether a displaced person meets requirements for access to higher education and further higher-education study.
And yet the number of students who received visas from the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration dropped sharply. Of 61 visa applications from Gaza-based students that we know of, 52 have been refused (among Palestinian students overall, the figures have been reported as 97 refusals, and 36 approved). Of Trinity’s nine students, three received visas, four were refused and two await a decision.
The successful Trinity students were all in receipt of Government of Ireland scholarships, though these were described by the Higher Education Authority as being “unlikely” to cover the cost of living in Ireland. Others who received visas were funded under the Ireland-Palestine Scholarship Programme, part of the Ireland Fellows global scholarship programme in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
But students with the exact same – or greater – financial resources through full scholarships provided by colleges and universities were refused visas.
These inconsistencies are simply not fair, transparent or equitable.
“No evidence you’ll return to your home country” was one reason cited as grounds to refuse a visa, but in real terms, this is exceedingly difficult for students to produce.
For instance, one student who was refused has a five-year fully funded scholarship to study engineering with a one-year ‘stay-back’ visa (which allows non-EU students who graduate from Irish institutions to work full-time without an employer-sponsored work permit). It would be six years before the student would even consider returning. How is this student to produce evidence of a plan to return before their study even begins? I think we can all agree that we hope Gaza will look vastly different in six years’ time, and that a return would be more than feasible.
“You can appeal” was another reason. Fine, but an appeal of a visa decision could take up to a year, and it must be submitted by post. This excludes any student seeking to start their studies in September, not to mention the fact that the postal system in Gaza is non-existent.
[ Protesters gather in solidarity with Gazan students denied visas to IrelandOpens in new window ]
Is there a solution?
Yes. There is both a short-term solution and a longer-term one.
To meet the immediate need, we need to reframe these scholarships and visa applications considering the State’s commitment to the Lisbon Recognition Convention. There is provision to treat these students’ applications differently to others. At the very least, the Department of Justice could revisit decisions for the 2026-2027 academic year and apply sensible rules for visa review.
Longer term, we can capitalise on the model the colleges and universities of Ireland have shown they can develop. What is needed is a funded partnership model between the Government (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Further and Higher Education) and the institutions backed by fee waivers and donor support.
We could have an international student scholarship scheme with a focus on students from conflict zones such as, but not exclusively, Gaza.
We could build out the Ireland-Palestine Scholarship Programme model to include other areas, drawing on the lessons learned from the Government-funded and HEI-hosted National Student and Researcher Helpdesk which worked to assist displaced students and researchers from Ukraine.
The responses from higher education institutions and Government to support Ukraine (in 2023-2024) and Gaza (in 2025-2026) were exceptional and were viewed internationally with profound respect.
Doing the same again is possible. We have the experience and the commitment.
Education changes lives. Enabling access to education and respite from war, conflict, famine, genocide and environmental disasters also saves lives.
This is not just about the fate of individual students. Meaningful educational support will mean that communities and countries can be rebuilt. It means that the impact of deliberate or unintentional destruction of education and educational infrastructure – which always happen in war zones – is minimised.
We can – and should – do better.
Emma Stokes is outgoing vice-president of global engagement at Trinity College Dublin and president-designate of the National College of Ireland
