Irish varsities woo City students with scholarships

The Ireland Education Fair is back in the City and a number of students from all over Bangalore are seriously considering giving Ireland a shot, in view of attractive scholarships being offered by various Irish universities.

“We are giving 50 per cent and in some cases even 100 per cent scholarships to all Indian students who apply for our programmes,” said Deirdre Dunne, senior executive assistant of National University of Ireland Maynooth. For courses that cost between 10,000 to 13,000 Euros, scholarships such as these seems to be quite an attractive prospect.

Dharmesh Hirani has just completed his Masters in Biotechnology from a City college and has been scanning various institutions abroad as well as in India to pursue his doctoral studies. “Many institutions in the country that I have come across have inadequate facilities for a PhD or other higher studies.

Universities in Ireland are offering such huge scholarship and trying to woo us, while in India no such incentives are being provided,” said Dharmesh. And the prospects of finding such scholarship was exactly what made students such as Dharmesh flock the edu-fair. “With such attractive scholarships, I won’t mind going to Ireland. Being a topper at my University, I could probably avail myself of these scholarships with ease,” he said.

The Limerick Institute of Technology offers a number of fully-funded scholarship for those wanting to pursue research. “There are currently 85 students who are pursuing a PhD in the institute and, the majority of them are under the fully-funded programme,” said Paul Madden, international liaison officer for the University. The University also offers 10 per cent to 20 per cent scholarships on all its programmes, based on aspirants’ academic performance and knowledge of English.

Mohammed Saleh and Assad are two students from Yemen who have completed their bachelors in Computer Science and are currently learning English in the City. “We would not mind continuing our studies in India. But, with destinations like Ireland offering such attractive packages and scholarships, we will not hesitate going there,” they said.

By afternoon on Sunday, about 100 students had already registered themselves at various Irish universities. This is the second time that the fair is being held in the City. The education fair also travelled to Pune, Delhi and Chennai between February 23 and March 3. As many as 300 students from these metros have already registered themselves with the education fair.