Every year the country’s sixth year students come under pressure not just from the Leaving Cert but from trying to figure out what they want to do with their life. The latter is by far the harder challenge.
If that’s what one of your own children is going through, relax. Education is about way more than exam results. Thanks to the wide variety of Post Leaving Certificate (PLC) courses available, which provide a bridge either into the workforce or on to third level, there are now many more options to help them get wherever they decide to go.
It’s something Lorraine Harton sees daily at Coláiste Dhúlaigh College of Further Education in Dublin.
She co-ordinates the social media influencer course. Now in its third year, it was the first of its kind in Ireland and a great example of the way in which PLCs can provide pathways into both traditional career choices, such as teaching, engineering and new and emerging career opportunities that parents mightn’t even know exist.
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“Every year we have had actual social media influencers on the course, including TikTok star Nia Gallagher who has over 345,000 followers and Sean Flanagan who makes videos about mental health,” says Harton
“Some influencers have no problem with images but want to learn how to make really high-quality long form content for YouTube, which is where they can make money,” she explains.
“Others come on the course because they want to do social media marketing for other people’s businesses as a job, or because they want to set up a business of their own and want to know how to promote it online.”
Whatever the PLC course you choose – and the range on offer is enormous – all offer particular advantages.
“They are so much more practical and hands on than university,” says Harton, who also tutors in media. “In a PLC everyone gets to use the equipment and because of the small class sizes you have a much more personal relationship with your tutor.”
Each year over 25,000 [PL1] people undertake a PLC. Courses are one- or two-years long and offer a mix of practical work, academic work, and work experience.
Most are delivered by Education and Training Boards (ETBs) and are available in every county across Ireland, covering everything from business to sport. STEM courses are particularly popular, including engineering technology, cyber security, and software development.
“You can also do a PLC in something like pre-science or pre-engineering, if you don’t want to go straight to university,” explains Harton.
“It creates a one-year steppingstone between school and university which can really help a student. Universities love to see our students coming in because they are a lot more prepared for third- level.”
From Oscars to Olympics
PLCs are part of the Further Education and Training (FET) sector, which also includes apprenticeships and traineeships. All come under the auspices of state agency Solas.
Some of Ireland’s best known success stories, from Olympic gold medallist Kellie Harrington to RTE news reporter Sharon Tobin and the best-selling authors behind the Aisling series Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen, are all former FET learners.
One college alone, Ballyfermot College of Further Education, has spawned eight Oscar nominees, for their work in animation.
Whether a student has a particular job in mind and wants the most direct route in; is uncertain about what they want to do long term but is keen to try out a new area of learning; or wants[PL2] into third level, a PLC can provide the answer.
Applications are made directly to the course provider and completion of a PLC course leads to an award on the National Framework of Qualifications at NFQ Level 5 or 6, as well as other qualifications, such as City and Guilds.
In some cases, a PLC can take you right through to a degree. Coláiste Dhúlaigh, for example, offers in-house degrees in subjects such as drama and animation, accredited by the University of Wolverhampton.
A Smart Choice
Year-long PLC courses such as pre-engineering, pre-law or pre-business can be a smart way to trial a subject for a year before committing to a four-year degree programme. It also gives a year to develop research, presentation, writing and delivering to deadline skills, better equipping those that transfer to a degree course for the challenges of university workloads.
“PLCs offer huge advantages. They are based in local communities, and they are non-fee paying as these have been abolished,” adds Maria Walshe, director of branding, communications, and FET strategy implementation at Solas.
The FET sector has also seen significant capital investment in recent years, such as the move by Marino Killester Colleges of Education into the old TU Dublin buildings on Cathal Brugha Street.
Kerry College pioneered the way as Ireland’s first integrated provider of FET, providing clear routes to employment, further study, higher education, and apprenticeship all under one roof, with 180 full and part-time courses.
“We all talk about CAO and obsess about points. Students can feel this rush to fill out the CAO, get into college and off to work. What a PLC course can do is give you room to breathe,” says Walshe.
“It’s about opening those conversations so that people are looking at everything that is in front of them. It’s letting students know that the option is there to take a year, perhaps deferring a CAO offer, and do a PLC instead,” she says.
PLC courses are not only for school leavers either. “We often see people go off to university and then come back and do a specialised course in, say, IT programming,” she says.
“That’s great because education is life long and the days of doing one course and saying ‘That’s me done’ are disappearing. The variety of courses on offer is amazing. FET is for everyone. It can take you on a journey, wherever your starting point is - and it’s all free.”
The CAO website is now giving students the opportunity to view and discover all their options post Leaving Certificate, including Further Education and Training and apprenticeships. For more great learner testimonials about what PLCs have to offer, log onto thisisfet.ie