Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 2 December 2020
211. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the progress made to ensure equal access to financial support for students of agricultural colleges such as the student hardship fund and once-off Covid-19 payment scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40701/20]
View answerI very much appreciate that students in the agricultural colleges face financial challenges this year due to the impact of COVID 19.
To assist those learners, Teagasc is proposing broadly similar measures to those recently announced by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science in the wider education sector to support remote learning and to provide financial assistance to fulltime students.
It includes a targeted measure to support disadvantaged students whose circumstances limit their ability to access remote learning and once off supports for recipients of the Teagasc student maintenance grant and those who paid the fulltime course fee on Level 5 and Level 6 programmes.
It is intended that these measures will be implemented before year end.
