Discount retailer Lidl is to offer potential employees the chance to obtain a degree in retail management.
The German-owned supermarket chain plans to enrol 40 trainees on a bachelor of business course to be completed in 30 months.
Half the students' time will be spent studying management, marketing and accounting at the Dublin Business School, while the rest is work-based.
The company says it will pay students €16,000 - €20,000 a year plus tuition fees for the duration of the programme. Participants will be employees of Lidl and will receive 20 days' holiday a year.
At the end, graduates will have "an excellent opportunity of being offered a permanent deputy store manager contract," the company says.
The course has yet to be validated by the Higher Education and Training Awards Council, but the council's chief executive Séamus Puirseil said this process would be completed by June.
A number of firms, including Thomas Crosbie Holdings and Fidelity Insurance, have started providing staff with higher education courses in-house instead of sending them to college.
Launching the new degree, Minister for Education Mary Hanafin said such initiatives tended to be appropriate for young people who might not otherwise be able to avail of full-time, third-level education.
"Programmes such as this, which involve considerable investment by employers in the education or training of a number of its staff, are to be encouraged and promoted," she said.
Lidl, which has 85 Irish stores, has been criticised by trade unions in other countries for allegedly mistreating workers and for breaches of working time directives. Lidl denies the allegations.
