Exploring Education Opportunities for Indians in Ireland: James Reilly

1. What was the purpose of your visit to India?
There are already 1800 Indian students studying in Ireland, but the aim is to promote and develop better more relations between Ireland and India. We would like to see much more activity between our two countries. We have a lot in common. We are both fairly new republics with a long list of traditions and in terms of education, Ireland is well positioned to provide for Indian students who wish to pursue either undergraduate or postgraduate studies in an English-speaking nation.

2. What are the educational and trade opportunities for youth in Ireland?
We have a lot of opportunities for young people in Ireland. The new British Irish Visa Scheme also makes it easier for Indian citizens to travel here. This adds to the education and trade opportunities in Ireland and in turn leads to better relations between countries. This implies that when Indian students come to our country, complete their studies and wish to get a job here, we don't ask them to leave within three weeks or three months; we give them a whole year to do that. How long they stay after that depends on them and their employers.

3. In terms of Irish students coming to India, what do you think is the future of education?
We already have a number of Irish students coming to India, because many Irish institutes have links with Indian institutes and colleges. For instance the University College Dublin (UCD), Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, Dublin has a relationship with IIM Bangalore and Trinity College, Dublin (TCD) and Presidency College, Calcutta have a relationship; TCD and UCD have very strong relationships with Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Delhi. We already have a base, but now would like to see more Irish students coming here to learn more about India and getting broader experience in their area of interest.

4. What are your views on universities that offer joint degrees, where students do one semester on the home campus and the other in the international campus or have student exchange programmes?
We have already developed these kinds of programmes with other countries and would be very interested to do something like that with India. For instance, I know colleges in Dublin that do the first two years of theoretical science education in other countries and then do the clinical education back in their home country, so these models exist and could be explored in lots of areas other than medicine. I think its wonderful exposure for students to experience colleges or universities abroad before completing their final degree.

5. How do the youth in Ireland (both local and international) contribute to the growth of Ireland as a country and economy?
Young people have the ability to think outside the box and if we give youth from from other parts of the world the opportunity to think and work with the youth of our country, we will have a fantastic synergy and much better outcome. Ireland is seen as a good place to work and many of the world's leading firms, including Google, eBay, Intel and Facebook—to mention a few—have chosen Ireland as a hub of their European network. Consequently, we have a lot of highly educated individuals who are running their businessese here and because we are very open both as a society as an and economy we find it very easy to attract the other talent necessary for companies to run their businesses successfully.

6. Do you have policies for students to start-up their ventures in Ireland?
Being one of the fastest growing economy in the world, we welcome innovation, new ideas and business. We have a number of state agencies that support start-ups in terms of getting through all the bureaucracy that's required and also providing some small amounts of seed capital that will help them set up. We have already had a number of successful set-ups in the last couple of years and hope to see more in the future.

7. What are the subjects that Indian students are primarily going to Ireland to study?
The most common courses that Indian students pursue are related to biotechnology, business/finance, ICT, pharma and medtech. Our advice to Indian students is to consider the industries and skills that will be in most in demand in the future.

8) What is the USP of an education in Ireland? (i.e. What sets it apart from an education in the US or UK?)
Ireland has a simple one-year stay back system in place, which guarantees students the opportunity to remain in Ireland post their graduation for a period of one year and seek employment in booming sectors such as ICT, Financial Services and MedTech. During their approved stay under the scheme, a student can work full-time.
Some of our universities offer four-year undergraduate programmes, with the third of the four years being a highly paid for placement in some of the distinguished global MNCs. Experience has proven that by the end of undergrad in such courses, high-performing skilled graduates are often offered full-time positions in the companies involved.
Many universities assist with placements. Some of them have career fairs for this purpose. Each university has a Career Services Department, which helps students procure placements. The courses at universities also offer the option of work placements, which international students find very useful.
The Irish NFQ system is compatible with the ENIC-NARIC (European Network of Information Centres/National Academic Recognition Information Centres), which facilitates the recognition of academic qualifications throughout Europe and internationally, in countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.