Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 December 2011
171 Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Minister for Education and Skills the reason behind his decision to reduce the allocation for the fund for students with disabilities by 20%; and his views that this will have a negative impact on the number of students with disabilities who go on to or stay in higher education. [40011/11]
View answer172 Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Minister for Education and Skills the level of funding available for students with disabilities in 2011; and the level of funding that will be available in 2012. [40012/11]
View answer173 Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Minister for Education and Skills the number of students with disabilities who attended higher education in 2010 and in 2011; and the number of students who availed of the fund for students with disabilities in 2010 and 2011. [40013/11]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos 171 to 173, inclusive, together.
It is anticipated that the funding available in 2012 for the Fund for Students with Disabilities (FSD) will be sufficient to meet demand. I understand that this is possible for a number of reasons including a greater integration of delivery of supports to students with disabilities into the core activities of institutions which has led to lesser dependence on supplementary funding through the FSD. In addition, in practice, there is a frequent incidence of lower take-up by students of accommodations agreed as per a student's Needs Assessment at the beginning of the academic year. Furthermore, students accessing the fund in year one don't necessarily need to access the fund at the same level in subsequent years.
A total of €13.7m was available to the Fund for the 2010/11 academic year. The allocation for the 2011/12 academic year is currently being assessed as part of the applications process which remains on-going.
In 2010/11, it was estimated that 6.4% of new entrants (2,544) to higher education had one or more disabilities. This compares to 6% (2,386) in 2009/10. The number of students with disabilities supported through the Fund for Students with Disabilities (i.e. undergraduate and postgraduate years) in 2010/11 was 6,090.
