Minister for European Affairs Mr. Dick Roche TD opens the new Centre of Irish Education in Singapore

Minister for European Affairs Dick Roche - who is in Singapore to attend the European Union Summit meeting with the Leaders of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) - this evening formally opened the Centre of Irish Education which is located at the heart of the Central Business District of Singapore.

The Centre’s mission is to connect students from across Singapore and South East Asia with learning opportunities in Ireland. It will act as an information provider and as a marketing partner - in conjunction with local education consultants – for Third Level Education Institutions in Ireland. The Centre will provide all the facilities of a “One-Stop-Shop” in meeting student needs as they seek to understand the excellence and avail of the opportunities of Irish educational institutions and products. It will offer detailed profiles about studying in Ireland on its website – soon to be translated into the languages of the ASEAN region – which will have an easy-to-search database detailing the courses on offer in its affiliated Irish Universities and Institutes of Technology.

The opening of the Centre of Irish Education follows the publication last December of the “Singapore-Ireland Education Report” commissioned by the Irish Embassy to make recommendations on how best to enhance the education and research relationships between the two countries. The CEO of the Irish owned and Singapore based language training company – The Ascend Education Centre – Mr. David Doyle - took up the challenge of the Report and engaged in a series of consultations with Universities and Institutes of Technology both in Singapore and in Ireland. These efforts have developed a new range of institutional links and seen a doubling of the number of Singapore students in Ireland this year - with the objective of 250 travelling to study in Ireland in 2008.

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Press
22 November 2007