O'Keeffe accused of disabled snub in free fees offer
Wednesday August 05 2009
COLLEGES were swamped with inquiries from unemployed graduates yesterday after plans for 1,000 free postgraduate places were unveiled.
But Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe has been accused of ignoring disabled graduates.
The part-time places are being made available for free in the country's seven universities and 13 institutes of technology.
Entrants to the courses, which are up to two years long, will be entitled to retain their social welfare payments.
The courses are in areas such as computing, business and green technologies.
But those with disabilities expressed anger at their exclusion.
There are more than 4,000 students with disabilities on full-time courses in college where they can avail of a Fund for Students with Disabilities operated by the Higher Education Authority (HEA).
But a spokesperson for the HEA said the Fund for Students with Disabilities never applied to part-time courses.
"This is discrimination" said Ann Heelan, executive director of the Association for Higher Education Access and Disability (AHEAD).
"This fund is not open to disabled graduates, they are excluded," she said.
The HEA said it was confident that the colleges would fulfil their obligations under the Equal Status Act 2000 and the Disability Act 2005.
- John Walshe
