The Internationalisation Register is a listing - maintained on behalf of the Departments of Justice and Law Reform, and of Education and Skills - of courses appropriate for the issue of study visas in terms of hours, duration and other specific criteria.
Key Points
"Recommendation 1 (R1) of the New Immigration Regime states that new procedures should operate on a differentiated basis and that programmes should be divided into two categories (a) Degree Programmes and (b) Language and Non Degree Programmes."
"Any programme included in the register as satisfying the Degree Programme category, must have an associated workload of at least 60 ECTS credits per academic year and non-EEA students must be attending the programme on a fulltime / daytime basis."
In addition to other criteria, "a Non-Degree programme will be deemed to meet the duration criterion if the programme is of at least one year’s duration and students attend on a full-time / daytime basis; if formal timetabled hours for student contact amount to at least 15 hours per week; if the course operates for at least 25 weeks over the year; and if the tuition element constitutes at least 250 hours during that period."
In both cases, courses which do not meet the definition and interpretation set out in the document will be removed from the register by 1st July 2011.