The Education (Student Support) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2009

Old system students who are continuing students

26.—(1) This regulation applies to an old system student who began a designated course before 1st September 2006 and is continuing on that course after 31st August 2009, or began a designated course on or after 1st September 2006 at a relevant institution of higher education in the Republic of Ireland and is continuing on that course after 31st August 2009 in either case (a “continuing student”).

(2) A continuing student does not qualify for a grant for fees in respect of any academic year of the course that begins on or after 1st September 2009 where in the course of assessing an application for support in respect of an academic year of the designated course that began before 1st September 2006 the Department determined in accordance with regulations made by the Department under Article 3 of the Order that the student did not qualify for fee support in respect of the designated course.

(3) A continuing student does not qualify for a grant for fees in respect of a designated course if the designated course is a flexible postgraduate course for the initial training of teachers.

(4) A continuing student does not qualify for a grant for fees in respect of an academic year of a designated course that is a bursary year or an Erasmus year.

(5) When assessing an application for support in respect of an academic year of the designated course, the Department must determine the “standard entitlement”.

(6) The standard entitlement is calculated as follows—

where

• SAY is the number of standard academic years of the designated course that begin after 31st August 2006,

• X is the number of academic years of the designated course that begin after 31st August 2006 in respect of which the Department determined in accordance with regulations made by the Department under Article 3 of the Order that the student did not qualify for a grant for fees in the course of assessing an application for support in respect of an academic year of the designated course that began before 1st September 2006.

(7) When assessing an application for support in respect of an academic year of the designated course, the Department must allocate a grant for fees from the standard entitlement first to the final standard academic year of the course and then to each preceding standard academic year in turn until the standard entitlement is exhausted or a grant for fees has been allocated to each standard academic year of the course.

(8) A continuing student qualifies for a grant for fees in respect of a standard academic year of the designated course if the Department allocates a grant for fees to that year when assessing the application for support for that year.

(9) The amount of the grant for fees in respect of an academic year is determined in accordance with regulation 32, 33 or 34 and may be nil.