Grant system should follow CAO's lead

Despite repeated calls from a variety of interested parties to the Department of Education and Science for a single co-ordinated system of applying for funds for further education, very little progress has been made for the last few years.

The Department delegates the acceptance and processing of grant applications to the local authority or the Vocational Education Committee, when it would make far more sense to establish an organisation similar to the CAO which would accept and process grant applications centrally. Admittedly, it is now possible for applicants to apply for any one of the four major grants using a single application form. However, as all four schemes - Higher Education Grant, Vocation Education Committees' Scholarship, European Social Fund-Aided Third Level Courses Maintenance Grant and Post Leaving Certificate Courses ESF Maintenance Grants - are designed to provide funding for further education, it defies logic as to why a single grant scheme cannot be put in place by the Department.

All and sundry are aware that February 1st each year is the closing date for applications to the CAO, for the simple reason that the date never varies. As an added safeguard, CAO accepts late applications, with certain courses excepted, up to May 1st. In contrast, the closing date for grant applications continues to fluctuate - this year it was August 6th.

This was a most inappropriate date, far removed from the academic year, and it's possible that students who were away on holidays or working may have missed out.

Sometimes, also, a certain amount of confusion arises in the minds of students between tuition fees and maintenance costs. As tuition fees for undergraduate courses were abolished in 1996, it is no longer necessary to apply for a grant to cover the cost of fees. However, the maintenance portion of the grant still must be applied for, as it is means-tested.

Since young Leaving Cert students are obliged to deal with the demands of applying for college places, searching for accommodation, applying for grants etc, as well as coping with the pressure of the exam itself, they can well do without unnecessary complications. I am strongly of the opinion that the closing date for grant applications should be within the school term. The form is complicated and detailed and, at school, the students could be assisted by the guidance counsellors. The only assistance that can be given at present is a reminder to students that the applications were come on stream sometime during the summer.

Very often, the Department is unable to inform the schools of the impending closing date. This year's date of August 6th was a fortnight before the publication of the Leaving Cert exam results and was likely to have been missed by a considerable number of deserving applicants.

Under the present system, the local authority may accept an application which is not received on time and may, at its own absolute discretion, treat it as if it had been received on time. On the other hand, the local authority has the discretion to deem it late and refuse to process it. While a certain amount of discretion is welcome, it is far too arbitrary when it comes to the future of young people. As the year 2000 applications season gets under way, Micheal Martin would well serve young people by simplifying and centralising the process of applying for financial aid. It's time to amalgamate the four major schemes into a single grant scheme, introduce a fixed and permanent closing date for applying within the school year and, most importantly, generously extend the reckonable income levels for eligibility as well as the amount of the grant.