Students Awards Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1992

Discretionary payments

19.—(1) In respect of any period during which the student repeats any part of his course, the board shall not be required to make any payments under regulation 12(1)(a) or 12(1)(b) but may pay in pursuance of the award such amounts (if any) as it considers appropriate, being amounts not exceeding the amount of any payments that would, apart from this regulation, be payable to that student in respect of that period.

(2) Paragraph (3) shall apply in the case of a student who has previously attended a course of higher education being—

(a) in the case of a specified course, a course of up to two academic years' duration; or

(b) in the case of a course other than a specified course, a course of two academic years' duration, (excluding any periods of unpaid service or research or of practice, undertaken as part of the course of the kinds mentioned in head (a) in the definition of “periods of experience” in regulation 3(1) and, in the case of a sandwich course, periods of experience),

and holds an award made in respect of a course listed in paragraphs 1, 2, 5 or 6 of Schedule 3, being a course ordinarily of a duration of more than one year.

(3) A board shall only be required to make payments under regulation 12(1)(a) or 12(1)(b) in pursuance of an award in respect of a course listed in paragraphs 1, 2 or 5 of Schedule 3 to a student who is referred to in paragraph (2), where—

(a) that course is ordinarily of a duration of two years or less, in respect of the final year of that course;

(b) that course is ordinarily of a duration of more than two years, in respect of the years (other than the first two years) of that course.

(4) In respect of the period of a course listed in paragraphs 1, 2, or 5 of Schedule 3 in relation to which the board is not, under paragraph (3), required to make payments, the board may make such payments as it considers appropriate, not exceeding those payments which would, apart from paragraph (3), have been payable under regulation 12(1)(a) or 12(1)(b).

(5) In this regulation a reference to—

(a) the ordinary duration of a course means the period ordinarily required for the completion thereof by a student who is not excused from attending part thereof by reason of his attendance at a previous course (excluding any periods of unpaid service or research or of practice undertaken as part of the course of the kinds mentioned in head (a) in the definition of periods of experience in regulation 3(1) and, in the case of a sandwich course, periods of experience);

(b) the first two years of a course means, in the case of a student who is excused from attending part of that course by reason of his attendance at a previous course, the two years of that course following upon the period in respect of which the student is excused from attending that course.