USI wants student grants raised to the level of welfare

The Union of Students of Ireland (USI) yesterday called for college student grants to be almost doubled.

At the USI's annual congress in Ennis, Co Clare, union president Mr Richard Hammond said that such an increase, to €108.50 per week, would be in line with social welfare payments.

Launching a USI policy document entitled "Equality of Access to Higher Education", Mr Hammond said: "The State has already decided that the social welfare payment is the minimum that allows people live with dignity, and students should be afforded the same."

He said students should be also be allowed a rent allowance, especially for those students in accommodation in Dublin where the rents are highest.

According to the USI document, the increase in grant allocation plus rent allowance "would cover a student's basic cost of living away from home excluding alcohol and cigarettes."

Mr Hammond said that currently only 30 per cent of students qualify for the student grant, with a proportion of that percentage qualifying for the maximum of €65 per week.

"The threshold for qualifying for a grant is so low that two parents working at McDonald's would disqualify their son or daughter from obtaining the grant. It is obvious that such a threshold is too low and needs to addressed."

The 98-page USI document also calls for tax relief to be extended to all courses undertaken by employees that are approved by the Department of Education.

The document highlights the experiences of the socio-economically disadvantaged, mature students, Travellers and people with disabilities in relation to access to higher education. Mr Hammond said: "The eradication of educational disadvantage has been a primary objective of our education policy for many years.

"There must be no more excuses: access issues should be addressed immediately." The document also recommended that each traveller family be allocated a PC.

The document states: "The idea of this is to ensure that transient Traveller children may continue and learn and keep up to date with school work via e-mail, thus making distance learning a reality.

The publication of yesterday's document follows the USI campaign during the congress to improve access to third-level education for disadvantaged groups.

Launching the campaign, the USI's equality officer, Mr John Friend-Pereira, said that there was still an alarming rate of institutional discrimination within third- level education.

"The legislation through the Equal Status Act is there, but there is still a major problem in that it needs to be implemented on the ground," he added.