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Brain drain fears as Irish students opt for the UK
Thursday, 26 November 2009
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A surge in applications from Irish school leavers for prestigious university courses in the UK next year has prompted fears of a brain drain.
The Republic’s government has pledged to keep the brightest students at home to kick-start the ‘smart economy', which is promised to lift Ireland out of the economic slump.
However, the fear of a flight of elite students to Britain threatens that government blueprint.
New figures show a 43% increase in applications from Ireland for courses in medicine, veterinary medicine, dentistry and science in British universities, and also to other courses in Oxford and Cambridge.
More than 1,300 students— up by 400 on last year — have already applied for top UK courses beginning next autumn.
A further 4,500 are expected to apply for other courses by the deadline of January 15.
Among the early applicants were high points students from the 2009 Leaving Certificate class, who failed get into an Irish medical school after the introduction of the controversial HPAT aptitude test.
Many of the disappointed applicants have applied to UK medical schools for next year, in some cases preparing to vacate places on alternative courses they took up in Irish universities this year.
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Steve how old are you 5? Your embarrassing yourself...
Posted by fiona | 04.12.09, 11:23 GMT
Steve
What you regard as TRUTH is regarded by most normal people as the irritating rantings of a deluded midget, and nothing more. I'm not sure if your addiction can be treated.
Posted by Patrick | 04.12.09, 10:28 GMT
Oh, touched a nerve there! Ah well, the truth hurts.
Posted by steve | 04.12.09, 00:41 GMT
Who wants to live in a parochial, sectarian backwater, beset with crippling taxes, and an insurmountable debt burden when they can simply move out?
Posted by man dingo | 03.12.09, 23:19 GMT
Quite. Lets all laugh at Steve and his very tenuous attempts to vent his anti Irishness!
Posted by derek | 03.12.09, 09:49 GMT
Steve
If you had bothered to READ the article properly (assuming you can) you will have realized that some Irish students who cannot find places at Irish Unis. may apply to attend at an English one.
It's not rocket science Steve, and even you might understand it if you were not so eager to rush off your habitual sneer at people who have done you no harm. Pathetic - as usual.
Posted by Patrick | 01.12.09, 12:20 GMT
Steve
You really are a tiresome little man.
Why work in London when you can work in New York or California or Australia ( which is about as English as chow mein by the way) as thousands of English graduates do, or perhaps at one of the major multinationals who have their European headquarters in the Republic.
Grow up lad.
Posted by Fair Play | 01.12.09, 10:25 GMT
Quelle surprise! Irish high achievers naturally want to 'play with the big boys', so to speak, so it's only natural that they want to leave the comparative backwater that is Ireland and work in a big hitting, G8 nation. Fairly obvious really. Why work in Leinster when you can work in London? The Irish play at it, the British really are big-hitters.....
Posted by Steve | 30.11.09, 08:21 GMT
This is an issue in NI. The academic high achievers do not stay and importantly not enough come back so they contribute less thatn they should to the economy of NI. It is often those who went through secondary school who stay, start companies and generate the local economies.
Posted by dave | 27.11.09, 09:27 GMT