The Institutes of Technology in Galway, Athlone and Waterford have signed a deal worth €9m which will see more than 1,000 Saudi Arabian students enter Irish higher education over the next four years. The scheme will commence in September with 80 students enrolling in both GMIT and AIT and 100 in WIT, at the start [...]
The Institutes of Technology in Galway, Athlone and Waterford have signed a deal worth €9m which will see more than 1,000 Saudi Arabian students enter Irish higher education over the next four years.
The scheme will commence in September with 80 students enrolling in both GMIT and AIT and 100 in WIT, at the start of four-year programmes of study.
The all-male group will initially undertake one year of English language tuition, after which they will transfer to a variety of three-year degree courses.
Their degree studies will be in areas as varied as engineering, renewable energy, software, business, accounting, financial services and tourism studies. The students will be funded under the King Abdullah Scholarship Programme, which will see the institutes recieve €9m in fees and an estimated €1m pumped into the local economy.
A similar intake of students will happen in 2011, 2012 and 2013. The scholarship scheme also funds the wives of the Saudi students to attend the three institutes of technology, where they will attend English language classes in their first year. There is provision in the agreement for it to be extended by a further four years if all parties are happy with progress achieved during the initial period.
The agreement was signed with the Technical Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a government institution which is responsible for development of the workforce in technical and vocational education.
GMIT President Marion Coy welcomed the new agreement with TVTC saying it is the culmination of three years’ international activity with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to assist them in upskilling their teaching staff. “The Kingdom wishes to grow its technical education provision drawing on the Irish Institute of Technology model, and GMIT is delighted to facilitate this process which will be of enormous benefit to Galway city and county.
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