Reform of the International Education Sector and Student Immigration System

The Government has approved the implementation of a series of reforms to the student immigration system for international education, in response to concerning practices within certain parts of the sector and a number of English language college closures.

The reforms are designed to drive real, lasting change in the sector and will tackle abuse of the immigration regime and labour market, improve the overall quality of offering to international students, and improve protection for learners, whilst safeguarding the strong international reputation of high-quality Irish education providers in line with the goals of Ireland’s International Education Strategy.

The new regulations and the schedule for implementation are set out in the Policy Statement “Reform of the International Education Sector and Student Immigration System”.

The key reforms include:

• A much more restrictive list of education programmes eligible for student immigration purposes. Further education and vocational education and training programmes will no longer feature on the list from 1st June 2015. This change was first signalled in September 2014.

• With regard to English language programmes, only those providers who can demonstrate that they have reached an acceptable quality standard will be permitted to appear on the list from 1st October 2015. They are being given an opportunity to do that.

• The standard 12 months immigration permission for the purposes of attending a 25 week English language programme is being reduced to 8 months with effect from 1st October 2015. Students will still be permitted 3 such permissions and there will be no reduction in overall tuition.

• A number of measures designed to protect students are being introduced including compulsory learner protection arrangements and a separate account facility to safeguard student advance payments.

To learn more, please consult the Policy Statement “Reform of the International Education Sector and Student Immigration System”. The Policy Statement is also available in Portuguese.