INIS issues Guidelines for Colleges
1/9/11 - In addition to its guidelines for individual students, the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) has now put in place guidelines for colleges who are offering courses to full-time non-EEA students, summarising the new student immigration rules as they impact on providers.
Areas outlined in the document include:
- Definition of courses and time limits
- Amendment of the Internationalisation Register to designate each course appearing on it as either Degree Programme or Language or Non-Degree
- Exclusion of evening courses, distance education or part-time study for non-EEA students
- Status of vocational and business courses
- Students travelling to and arriving in Ireland (requirements for colleges)
- Role of colleges in relation to student registration with GNIB
- Conditions for colleges regarding permission to recruit international students
Some of the key requirements for colleges are that:
- From September 1, the Letter of Acceptance from the college should clearly state whether the Course is a Degree Programme Course or Language or Non-Degree Programme course
- From October 1, in order to maintain permission to bring fulltime non-EEA students to Ireland to study a Degree Programme, colleges must have a clearly stated and understandable refunds policy on its website. A refund policy must also be provided to students as part of their acceptance.
- Colleges that do not have a required refund policy in place, or who do not comply with the terms of their stated policy, will not be able to obtain visas for their students until the matter is rectified.
- Colleges are required to inform the GNIB where students are consistently failing to attend class or where students are consistently not making progress.
- Colleges are required to co-operate with any inspections by GNIB and INIS.