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Tertiary sector in Ireland
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The international tertiary sector in Ireland is, in general, small, has no government support and sees minimal opportunity for growth in current circumstances. Amy Baker reports.
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Education Ireland bit the dust in the recent round of government cutbacks,” says Jim Ferguson of English language accrediting body, Acels, explaining that a promotional body that had been mooted to promote education in Ireland internationally no longer exists. This reinforces the lack of government support that some providers indicate in Ireland.
With the Irish economy faltering, revenue from international students entering the higher education system is clearly welcome, but the industry lacks any cohesive promotional strategy and growth is at best slow. One industry professional, who preferred to remain anonymous, told ETM, “At the heart of the problem is an apparent domination of the visa process by the Department of Justice which does not seem to reflect a customer service mentality but rather is informed by anecdote and ‘security concerns’.”
Another current problem is the strength of the euro, which is making Ireland more expensive, comparably, than other destinations – notably the neighbouring UK. Cait Barden at Portobello Institute in Dublin reports, “The UK has snapped up some of the Irish quota due to higher commission rates for higher numbers of students and due to the poor euro [exchange rate].”
That said, there is a slight upward trend in enrolment at most of the institutions that took part in this article, although not many could give a real percentage terms figure. Donal McAlister, International Coordinator at the Institute of Technology (IT) in Carlow, indicates a seven per cent rise over four years. On the other hand, Ronan Burke at Eden College in Dublin notes that static international numbers are more typical at this institution.
“We have agents all over the world,” he says. “I take trips to countries and do seminars, presentations and education fairs and we also have some offices around the world.” Eden College’s international intake is 80 per cent of total student intake, so this may explain that maintaining student numbers is still a significant outcome. At other institutions, for example at University College Cork (UCC), international intake on higher education programmes constitutes 12 per cent, which seems more typical.
Key student markets are reported to be from Asia. Most notably, China, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh as well as Mauritius are all singled out as important provider countries. Barden says that Brazil, Mauritius and China are particularly important at this institution, which sees strong interest in accountancy, financial management and e-commerce programmes among others. McAlister backs up this assertion, noting that business and computing programmes attract the most interest. At UCC, Emma Connolly observes, “Science engineering, computer science, IT and food science is big, and business – economics specifically.”
She is hopeful that numbers will be up in the 2009/10 academic year, thanks in part to the fact that “China has shown a noticeable increase” and US enrolments are growing too. “We are not reporting a drop, hoping that people are placing greater value on their education and are willing to invest in our Masters programmes,” she says. “Fortunately, for US students enrolling on our programmes it is still relatively cheap.”
At IT Carlow, McAlister believes that numbers this year will be level or down, “due to the global recession, increase in value of the euro and difficult visa policy”. Burke at Eden College is in agreement. “Numbers will be down due to the economy but it is not drastic,” he states.
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