Táiniste Mary Coughlan announces 30 places for Ennis Regional Learning Centre

Posted: June 04, 2010

Ennis Regional Learning Centre Awarded Training Fund

under Labour Market Activation Fund

For more information please click on the Labour Market Activation Tab.

The Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills, Mary Coughlan T.D. announced earlier this week that 30 places on the Certificate in General Studies in the Ennis Regional Learning Centre (ERLC) will be made available to the unemployed under the Labour Market Activation Fund, 2010.

Some €20million has been ring-fenced to provide over 6,500 places on courses in a range of different locations targeting the less-skilled, and those formerly employed in declining sectors such as construction, retail and manufacturing, with particular emphasis on the under 35s and the long-term unemployed.

Following an open tender competition in which 370 tenders were received, the contracts were awarded to just 26 organisations across the private, not-for-profit and public sectors to support specific training and education programmes for priority groups of the unemployed.  The Shannon Consortium (comprising of Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Limerick Institute of Technology, and Institute of Technology Tralee) was successful in no less than 6 of its applications resulting in 445 places across a range of different programmes being made available to those unemployed in this region.

Speaking on the awards Minister Mary Coughlan said "We put the Activation Fund in place to stimulate innovation in the provision of training and activation measures for jobseekers seeking to up-skill and get back into work. The response to the call for proposals for fund support exceeded the most optimistic expectations", she said, "and the overall high standard of tenders received made the task of selecting the successful proposals all the more challenging. I congratulate the successful training and education providers who participated in a very competitive process."

The Certificate in General Studies, which is due to commence in September is a FETAC Level 5 accredited programme, delivered over one academic year. Its purpose is to prepare participants for entry to third-level programmes (Level 6 +) in the disciplines of Science, Business, and Humanities.  The programme facilitates participants to develop the academic and personal skills necessary to progress successfully to third-level education by offering a mix of academic subjects and practical skill-based subjects, designed specifically to bring participants up to a skill and confidence level required to engage effectively in higher education. 

According to Ruth Bourke, Project Manager of the ERLC, “The ability to develop personal self-awareness and even more crucially, self-confidence, is also a key element of the learning needs of participants. Barriers encountered in the past often have a more profound effect on participants’ self-confidence than on their ability. A programme which offers ongoing support, advice and guidance to participants is essential to those who are attempting to re-engage with the education system for the purposes of progression to either education or employment. Self-confidence and belief can be developed through engagement with the learning processes and subjects on the programme as well as through developing practical knowledge and experience of a third-level environment, all in a highly supported manner.”

Application to the programme is open to anyone over the age of 18 who has left the formal education system and who has not had the opportunity to participate in third-level education up to now. Priority for places is awarded to those who have not yet achieved a Level 5 qualification as well as those who are in receipt of social welfare payments and for whom employment opportunities are, or have been, limited.

The Ennis Regional Learning Centre, which was officially opened in Clare County Museum in March 2009, is managed by Mary Immaculate College (MIC) and a steering committee of Shannon Consortium partners.   To date the centre has delivered a range of courses to 70 students such as the M.I.C.’s Certificate in Youth and Community Work, L.I.T.’s Higher Certificate in Business Computing; L.I.T.’s  Introduction to Small Scale Renewable Energy Technology and free taster lectures in Irish History with Dr. C. Swift from MIC, Oct – Dec 2009.

The Centre also offers information and guidance for adults interested in higher education. As well as dealing with almost 500 queries to date about higher education, they have provided one-to-one educational guidance appointments for adults interested in third level in addition to running a series of free Return to Learning information sessions on higher education to over 200 attendees. 

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