EACH YEAR a new batch of female students is welcomed onto another B Ed course at St Angela's College of Education in Co Sligo. Demand for its 25 course places is extremely high each year. According to the college, CAO numbers for this year show that 1,420 have applied for a place on the course starting this autumn.
Sister Anne Harte-Barry, one of the college lecturers, points out that over half this number put St Angela's down on their CAO/CAS forms in their top three list of preferences.
Graduates of the course leave with a degree, accredited by the National University of Ireland, in either home economics and biology or home economics and catechetics. This allows them to teach either combination of subjects up to and including honours Leaving Cert level.
The popularity of the course means that students usually need more than the minimum subject and grade requirements to gain entry. As a result the points each year are very high.
Last year first round points for the course which includes the biology programme were 475 dropping to 440 in the final round while the degree course with catechetics started at 455 and dropped to 430. Although the college has the capacity to increase its intake onto its degree course, current Department policy prevents it from doing so. When a report from a review group, which is currently examining the question of teacher supply and demand in this sector, is available the case will be re-examined.
About 75 per cent of graduates go into the post-primary sector, where they are employed mainly as post-primary teachers. However, opportunities are no longer confined to the traditional post-primary sector. About 25 per cent of graduates are employed in special and community education in areas such as Youthreach centres, community training workshops, Travellers' training workshops and centres for mentally and physically disabled people - as well as health boards, social services and industry.
St Angela's is about four miles outside Sligo town. Despite being cut off from the usual bustle of student life, undergraduates all talk about their love of the course. Helen McNamara (21), from Claremorris, Co Mayo, has just completed her fourth-year dissertation on Man and Meat Past and Present. "It's something that I was interested in. You choose a topic that is something which you have thought about yourself. It's a great learning experience.
Your research skills are developed. It's very rewarding, you have so much control over what you write."
Last year's dissertations included subjects such as the changing legacy of the Irish family, family care of the elderly, safety in post-primary schools and consumer perceptions of reduced fat dairy products.
Cornelia Walsh (20), a second-year student from Nenagh, Co Tipperary, says that she always wanted to be a teacher. "I loved my home economics teacher the whole way through school. The subject is so broad, the teacher has a different relationship with you than you have, say, with your maths teacher. There's so much to discuss."
THE course has a diverse and challenging range of subjects. In first year alone students study textiles, fashion and design, food studies, family resource management, philosophy of education, educational psychology, methodology, micro teaching, communications studies, basic science such as human physiology, chemistry and physics as well as computers. Then there is a choice between biology and catechetics.
"It's an awful lot of hard work," says Walsh. "You have practical subjects as well" says Cornelia Walsh.
McNamara agrees. Looking back on her four years at St Angela's, she says: "Yes, it's a very hard course, but I'm so glad to have done it. It's such a broad coarse. You get an insight into so many areas.
