THERE is a School of Natural Health Sciences in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, which has been offering diploma and degree courses in areas such as child psychology, counselling, sports nutrition, veterinary homeopathy, stress management and reflexology, among others.
These courses are all operated by post and are designed for home study "under the guidance of one of our qualified tutors". Fees for most courses are £470 with £150 payable on registration and the remainder in monthly instalments.
The school, the brochure says, provides graduates with "qualifications to diploma and degree status with the Trinity College and University".
So proud is the school of this "Trinity" connection that it is mentioned 15 times in the brochure; 13 of these references are picked out in big bold type in a black panel; two occur in the course of ordinary sentences in the introduction.
Only once - in a non bold reference in the last sentence of a longish paragraph - does the brochure include the word Spain after the reference to Trinity University.
"We have had inquiries from students who thought the courses were validated by Trinity College Dublin," says TCD's admissions officer, Mr Joe Kirwan. "We even had a school write to us asking why we had not made them aware of these new, courses."
The university had written to the School of Natural Health Sciences objecting to the format of the brochure and asking the school to change it so as to avoid it being associated with TCD. There is no connection whatsoever between Trinity College Dublin and this school, Trinity wishes to emphasise.
Dr Patrick J. Murphy, principal of the school - Ph.D in Alternative Medicine - agrees the brochure may have been "misleading", so after contact between TCD's lawyers and his, the brochure was withdrawn earlier this week and he has agreed to make clear the connection is with Trinity University, Spain.
A new brochure is being issued. Did he intend contacting anyone who might have been misled by the old brochure? "I have had no complaints at all."
What is Trinity University Spain, then? "It has a charter to award degrees and it is based in Mijas, Malaga." He gave us an address in Mijas and a PO number in nearby Fuengirola, the popular holiday resort.
The Spanish embassy in Dublin replied to a query on the status of the university as follows: "The courses and diplomas which may be obtained at the centres you inquired about in your letter lack any official recognition within the Spanish educational system and neither can they be accepted under the current legislation on co validation of foreign studies and degrees."
The Under Directorate for Degrees and Co validations in Madrid had informed the embassy it had "no knowledge of them having obtained any authorisation from either the central or the autonomous educational authorities which would entitle them to teach any courses in Spain".
So who was the authorising body for Trinity University in Malaga? Dr Murphy helpfully provided us with the telephone number of Dr Peel Bailey at the college near Malaga.
"Trinity College, not Trinity University," Dr Bailey said. Could he tell us something more, about the college. "Not really. Well, what was it? "It's an educational institution, why do you want to know?" We explained and asked if Trinity made awards in Ireland. "It's not one of our more popular locations."
It had centres in Spain, in London, America and various other places. But, we explained, the Spanish embassy said it had no formal authorisation.
"We are owned by a church, an American church and a church can do virtually what it wants. That's the whole story." And no, he could not say exactly how many awards had been made in Ireland, "with so many awards going through I wouldn't know".
Dr Murphy could not specify either how many, if any, awards - the Spanish college had made in Ireland.
ROUND THREE POINTS
The points for round three offers are printed on page 6 today. Where there is a blank in the column, it means no offer at all was made; where the same points appear, it means a tiny number of offers on that point level for people who may have encountered a problem on an earlier round for some reason or other.
The offers should have arrived in the post this morning. Around 1,000 offers were made in the round and applicants would be well advised not to hold their breath for much further to come over the next weeks.
To date, 47,181 of the approximately 60,000 applicants have got an offer and 33,681 have accepted. That means that the number of college places accepted this year is almost 2,000 higher than last year, so there is every likelihood that things will be pretty crowded on the campuses. The biggest increase has been in the certificate/diploma sector.
Of those who have accepted, 17,244 are on certificate/diploma courses and 16,437 on degree courses.
GRANTS FOR UK COLLEGES
There are some courses which are excluded from the new provision allowing Irish higher education grants to be paid to students studying in the UK. These are courses where a quota exists here, i.e. there is an official cap on the number of places which may be provided. If the Minister for Education were to grant aid such students to study in the UK, she would be effectively subsidising them to undermine her own quota.
The courses affected are teacher training, medicine, veterinary and dentistry.
Callers have asked why these should be approved for a fees grant in the UK and not for a maintenance grant from here. An EU ruling obliges all EU students to be treated equally for fees purposes, but this is not so in the case of grants.
Clearly, the Minister can specify to whom grants are applicable - as the existence of the means test makes clear. It is disappointing, but that's the way it is.
PLCS
St Joseph's College in Summerhill, Athlone, has contacted us to say it is the PLC college which finds itself obliged to charge £200 for a sport/recreation course. The problem, it says, is that the students had to pay up to £30 to register for certificates with various sporting bodies, including basketball badminton, soccer and BLE, then £30 has to be paid to the NCVA for registration for the NCVA certificate, so it all adds up.
The college says that to provide a proper PLC course, students have to register with all these bodies and they all cost money. The Department of Education does not cover this, so for the Minister to say there are no fees for PLCs is a bit rich, it feels. Oh, and it still has vacancies on the course (0902-92383) and also on a child-care course.
PLC VACANCIES
Pearse College, Crumlin (01) 453 6661/(01) 454 1544 still has some vacancies on business studies and international trade; draughting and design; languages for travel and tourism; retail management; media production skills; amenity horticulture. Repeat Leaving Certificate - still a few places available.
Westport Vocational School (098-25241): Still has vacancies in information technology/computer applications; secretarial studies; hotel/catering/tourism; hairdressing, sport/recreation.