[originaltext] Irish Students’ Drinking Causing High Dropout Rat

Irish Students’ Drinking Causing High Dropout Rate
    Excessive drinking in Irish universities is a major contributor to an alarming dropout rate at some campuses,/education officials said./ Higher Education Authoritychairman told a conference that/dataindicated students were spending a significant proportion of their time and money on alcohol,/newspapers reported./World Health Organization figures showed that Irish per capita consumption of beer,/the preferred drink of young men,/was 142.5 liters per year,/or almost twice the European Union average./Some campuses are losing almost a third of their students,/education officials said./But the dropout rate in Ireland is in line with international trends./John Denver, a representative of the Union of Students of Ireland,/warned against "scapegoating" students and said/per capita consumption of alcohol was higher at the bar in the Irish parliament than in student pubs./