'Indian Students Are Highly Skilled,' Says Ireland

12 Dec 2013

Ireland’s UCD (University College Dublin) declared a range of scholarships implicitly for students from India – the highest ever by any university from Ireland, so far. It also plans to collaborate with Indian colleges continuously through the establishment of its office in Delhi.

Due to its considerably affordable cost of living and tuition fee, these days Ireland is slowly becoming a much sought-after destination for Indian students’ education. In this context, for Indian students who want to study in Ireland, one of the largest Ireland universities - the UCD is giving out a series of scholarships.

UCD’s Associate Dean of International Studies, Jeremy Simpson points out that they are offering over 100 scholarships to Indian students who are considering their college to study. The scholarships are worth a grand total of 300,000 Euros.

This is the highest ever scholarship offered by any Irish University to Indian students. While some scholarships, like the ones offered by the Government of Ireland give a living stipend and a 100% tuition fee waiver, there are some that offer 25% or 50% waiver, and others that only cover the tuition fee, and so on.

He added that the quality of Indian students is very high in campuses across Ireland and said that this is their way of acknowledging Indian students and encouraging more students like that to select UCD.

Over the years, the number of students from India in Irish universities has increased tremendously. Simpson added that for the past 2-3 years, they have been actively advertising Ireland as a quality education destination, and during that period alone, they have seen a 400% increase in the number of Indian students.

He said that Indian students are highly skilled and specifically in IT and sciences, they find Indian students doing exceedingly well.

Simpson added that Ireland has a shortage of qualified IT professionals and they want Indian students to fill this gap.

There are many reasons for Indian students to prefer Irish universities. Simpson explains that one of the main reasons is the fact that Ireland offers quality education at an economical rate and apart from that, Ireland offers many advantages to Indian students, along with a greater quality of life, a vibrant student life and an English-speaking environment.

UCD has around 25,000 students, out of which international students account for 5,000, and around 260 students are Indians.

Simpson explained that students can select any combination of subjects; they can pair nanoscience with arts, biotechnology with business, and so on and the possibilities are endless. He added that UCD believes flexibility is the most critical aspect of their programs.

He added that they want to have positive interactions with the Indian universities and Indian student community. UCD signed MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Delhi University to encourage research collaborations, student exchange programs, and the like. For students across the globe, UCD also offer online courses.