A new body to attract thousands of foreign students to Irish colleges and universities is to be set up before Easter, the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, has said.
To be known as Education Ireland, it will co-ordinate the efforts of third-level institutions to attract foreign students and will care for their accommodation and personal needs while they are here.
The body, which will eventually be backed by legislation, will initially be set up as a limited company following the recent agreement of attorney general Rory Brady.
The establishment of Education Ireland was one of the key recommendations of a report, "The Internationalisation of Irish Education Services", drawn up over a year ago. Colleges from Australia, Canada, the UK, the US and other countries compete with the Republic for a share of the international education business, which is worth billions.
India is one of the world's largest markets for overseas students - 55,000 Indian students travel to the US each year to further their education.
Some 700 Indian students are at present enrolled in Irish colleges and universities and each spends about €25,000 a year on their education and personal needs. Over 60 per cent of these students are pursuing post-graduate and doctoral studies.
Three Department of Justice officials are now stationed at the Irish embassy in New Delhi to process visa applications following persistent Indian complaints about delays.
"This is not about giving places for Irish students away. This is about bringing high-calibre Indian students to Ireland," Ms Hanafin told The Irish Times yesterday in Bangalore.
Besides bringing revenue to Irish colleges, the State needed to attract 6,000 foreign PhD and post-doctoral students by 2013 to meet the demand from multi-national and Irish companies for top researchers.
"In 15 to 20 years' time, the roads will be built, the houses, the infrastructure. It is in the knowledge economy that we will have to compete."
She said that we would then need "enough PhDs to meet the needs of the Intels of this world".
Irish colleges and universities were turning out some 540 students with PhDs in economics, engineering and science annually and Ms Hanafin believes that this number will jump to nearly 1,000 a year by 2013.
The Minister, who is accompanied by representatives from 16 colleges, was speaking on the first day of a week-long trade mission to India led by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. The group arrived in the city of Bangalore yesterday.
The University of Dublin Smurfit School of Business and the Dublin Business School have signed co-operation agreements with the Indian Institute of Management and T John College, respectively, while Trinity College Dublin has announced that it is to open an office in Delhi to deal with student applications.
Besides Ms Hanafin, the Taoiseach is accompanied by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin, and the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, John O'Donoghue.
Today, Mr Ahern will attend the signing of a number of agreements between Irish and Indian companies. He will also meet senior executives of a number of major Indian firms.
