To ask the Minister for the Economy for her assessment of the potential additional financial burden facing further and higher education students as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; and what support she can provide.

My Department provides approximately £435 million of support to students across further and higher education every year. For Further Education (FE), this includes FE Grants, College Hardship Fund (both of which include childcare support), Free School Meals and Home to College Transport.

In addition to the current support arrangements, my Department initially secured £1.078 million of additional resource funding in June monitoring for the colleges to provide IT equipment for financially vulnerable learners to assist with remote learning during the initial lockdown. More recently I secured an additional £6.5 million from the Executive to support safe resumption of learning in FE colleges.

An additional £0.43 million has been allocated to fund direct payment of Free School Meal Allowances into the households of almost 1,900 eligible school-age FE students. My Department also continued to pay Educational Maintenance Allowance to eligible FE students when the FE Colleges shifted to online provision earlier this year.

During the pandemic, my Department has ensured that current FE student support arrangements continued to operate effectively, or were adapted, to direct support to students in need. This included paying childcare retainer fees during the initial lockdown, acceptance of electronic applications and evidence, paying Free School Meal allowances into households and ensuring there was effective public transport arrangements in place.

Regarding Higher Education (HE), it is a priority for me that students continue to receive the support to enable them to continue their higher education during this time. To date, a total of £56.2m of support has been paid out to 38,000 students by Student Finance NI for the current financial year. This comprises tuition fee loans, maintenance loans and grants, Disabled Students Allowance and other support.

I am aware that many HE students may be facing financial hardship due to the effects of the pandemic. In response, I have doubled the amount of support funds available to our universities from £2.8m to £5.6m for the current financial year. These funds are distributed by the universities on behalf of my Department and I would encourage any students who are experiencing financial genuine financial hardship to contact the student support team at their institution for details on how to apply.

My Department continues to keep support arrangements for HE and FE students under review and will adapt these are required in response to evolving needs.