BOYS and girls who have an extra language are at an advantage at every level of education. This is the view of Marie-Therese Boisse, European Studies Co-ordinator at Whitehall House Senior College in Dublin. This is the view of most educationalists in the PLC area.
Padraig O'Shea, principal of St Joseph's College in Borrisoleigh, Co Tipperary, says: "I would regard a person as being under-educated nowadays if they did not have a mastery of a Continental language." Courses from business to tourism, to secretarial studies and European studies to marketing, now include languages as part of the course make-up.
Marie-Therese Boisse adds: "we are inundated with firms ringing up looking for students" to work, in particular in the tourism area. And language is often an important bonus, she adds. Employment prospects seem to have improved in the last year.
The college has a European Studies course. Students study three languages - French, German and Spanish. Two students who started at the beginning of the year have already got jobs and gone to Brussels. Other students, who have also been successful in securing jobs, chose to remain and complete the course in order to graduate with the NCVA award.
John Ryan, principal of Bray Senior College, says that a choice in European languages has become a basic element of many PLC courses - in particular in the secretarial area. The college has a Language and European Studies plc course, which was set up last year. The demand for this type of course is growing. In the college's Bilingual Secretarial course, students have a choice of three languages - French, German and Italian. Many of the students who enrol want to improve their employment prospects. Some want to go abroad to work. The most important aspect of the PLC course, he says, is that the year helps students identify and then develop the skills they have.
Colaiste Dhulaigh runs a European Languages and Information Technology PLC course. The course aims to develop a student's proficiency in French and German. The class studies a wide range of business related skills also, says Ulrike McMahon. Students, she says, realise that "it is a very good course and that they learnt a lot in it and prepare themselves for third level. It's not quiet as demanding as third level college is. The students are led carefully through the course, and they get a chance to discover their strengths and skills.
Colaiste Dhulaigh has well-established links with some third level colleges, such as DIT Kevin Street, and many of the students aim at securing places there. Ulrike McMahon points out that language is an important aspect of study in a number of other PLC courses, e.g., marketing and business.
At Dundrum College the Information Technology Course covers such modules as application software, computer architecture and systems, communications and European language.
"There's many a person with a good PLC that will get a job quicker than a brother or a sister with a BA degree," says Padraig O'Shea about PLC courses in general. St Joseph's College in Borrisoleigh offers students in the midlands a chance to study Business French at PLC level. There are 30 students studying in the current year. Many of these want to get employment in Ireland.
