Dublin as an International Student City

Today I was on at panel discussing Dublin as an International Student City help by the Dublin Mayor. It was a good event and I was impressed with Shelia Power, the head of ICOS, who it would appear think along the same lines as myself! While my background knowledge on international students I was very fortunate to have some excellent documents, available from the USI website (www.usi.ie) created by the USI Equality Officer, Linda Kelly, as part of that campaign.

I really do hope that some 'outside the box thinking' is done before any decisions or plans are made on creating Dublin as an international student city. These international students should not be solely there as a 'cash cow' for the educational institutions as these students will need integration and will ultimately require the educational institutions to provide services for them.

Also much needed discussion needs to happen before a long term view and plan is made about the role of international students in both education and wider society. We must recognise that events like this may happen http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/we-will-not-tolerate-attack-on-indian-students-australian-minister_100284439.html and it is imperative that we focus on proper integration and ask both international students and Irish students how to achieve this. We must also ask the wider community for their views.

For every 100 international students in Dublin about 17 jobs are created as a direct result according to a panellist today and this is an impressive figure that should be noted given we are in the depths of a recession. It is also imperative that the Quality Mark is realised immediately to ensure that rouge educational institutes, in particular some English language Schools, which do not have the students at the centre and provide shoddy service and education should be closed down.

Looking forward to reading the report when its finished and here's hoping that all involved in the educational sector gets this right.