For the student, the future beckons. Each day, for the next three days, 6,000 students will converge on the Higher Options Conference at the Royal Dublin Society, in Ballsbridge, Dublin. Students can browse among more than 250 stands representing the various colleges and educational institutes in Ireland, Britain and Northern Ireland. Arnheim Business School, from the Netherlands, will lend a European flourish. The daytime sessions are fully booked and admission is by ticket only, but there will be an evening sessions from 7.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m. tomorrow for parents and mature students. If the Irish Times Points Race helpline is a good guide to the role parents play in the education of their children, this session will be packed with concerned mothers who will spend the college offers season on the phone sorting out their offsprings' future (the offspring will, of course, be abroad pickling beetroot, canning peas or lounging on Europe's beaches).
The evening session will provide a good overview of the admissions systems for Irish and UK colleges and the costs involved. Vivian Cassells, guidance counsellor, Oatlands College, Stillorgan, Co Dublin will outline what college and other career options are available. There will be a panel of representatives from various institutions covering areas such as CAO, UCAS, RTCs, DIT, PLCS, Irish universities, Northern Irish colleges and Scottish colleges. John Connolly who writes the Campus Pages in E & L, will deal with the costs involved. Sile Sheehy, head of the Education Services of The Irish Times will chair this session.
Second-level students, dazzled by the range of prospects before them, can also avail of a series of talks. It might be best to begin with the introductory session "Which College Place? Options on offer in Irish and UK third-level education" at either 9.45 a.m. or 12.00 p.m.
The early morning introductory talk will be followed by a briefing on the CAO admissions session. Later, there will be guidance on how to choose a career, how Post Leaving Certificate courses transfer to the regional technical colleges and the institutes of technology, and the CAO admissions system.
These general talks are complemented by a series of targeted careers talks throughout the morning and early afternoon. Careers in computers, the sports and leisure industry, art, design and communications will be covered as well as careers in engineering and travel and tourism. For the first time, there will be talks this year on the vital business of job-hunting (CVs and interviews) and also on small business enterprises. Both of these sessions are facilitated by AIB's personnel department.
Wandering around the halls between talks, students will find most career options well catered for - from apprenticeships to Post Leaving Certificate courses to agricultural and horticultural training to law and economics, medicine and pharmacy....
All seven Irish universities - UCD, UCG, NUI Maynooth, TCD, UCC, UL and DCU - will be represented so any burning queries about subject combinations, career prospects, course details or social life can be dealt with by members of staff. All ten regional technical colleges will also be present if students have a more applied course in mind. And don't forget, these colleges offer both ab-initio and add-on degrees as well as certificates and diplomas. Waterford Institute of Technology (formerly Waterford RTC) will be present in its new-found incarnation. Dublin Institute of Technology, which will have its own degree-awarding powers from next year, will also be prepared to field calls on courses as diverse as optics, marketing, engineering and music.
Still with Irish options, many of the Post Leaving Certificate colleges, have stands with information on exciting new courses. Almost 700 places have been created in teleservices courses in PLC colleges this year. These courses include a substantial grant-aided placement abroad and job prospects are excellent.
For the first time, private third-level colleges will join Higher Options. All of the colleges present offer courses accredited by the National Council for Educational Awards and are bonded.
Practical alternatives in the form of Teagasc (agriculture and horiculture), CERT (hotel, catering and tourism), and the Irish Hotels Federation are also to be found. The Defence Forces stand is always very popular and this year, for the first time, the gardai, which is involved in a major recruitment campaign, will be at Higher Options. The Royal College of Surgeons, the colleges of education, All Hallows College, and Tipperary Rural and Business Development Institute can be found in the main hall.
A number of organisations which are involved in supplying information and advice about third-level or accrediting awards will be represented - Youth Information Resource Unit, the National Council for Educational Awards, National Council for Vocational Awards, National Resource Centre for Guidance in Ireland, the CAO, and the National Centre for Guidance in Education.
The British central applications body, UCAS, will have a stand while ECCTIS 2000 and Education Multimedia Enterprises, both of which provide information on education in the UK, are side-by-side in the hall. The Irish Chaplaincy in the UK, which provides valuable information for students, is also represented.
There are nine colleges from Northern Ireland attending, including Queen's University, Belfast, and the University of Ulster. In a bid to entice Irish students overseas, more than 80 colleges have taken stands, along with 20 Scottish colleges and 12 Welsh colleges.
In all, it is expected that more than 20,000 students, teachers and parents will visit Higher Options, which is organised by The Irish Times and the Institute of Guidance Counsellors.
