Gaeilge
Donegal ETB’s Further Education and Training (FET) Service presented a wide range of awards to 175 students from across South Donegal at a presentation evening on Tuesday last.
Director of FET with Donegal ETB, Cróna Gallagher, welcomed hundreds of students, guests and staff to the event in the Millpark Hotel in Donegal Town and congratulated all of them on their achievements.
Chief Executive Anne McHugh also congratulated the students on their achievements and outlined the range of courses and services that Donegal ETB’s FET Service provides.
Many of the students completed their courses in the ETB’s FET Centres in Ballyshannon and Donegal Town and in their local communities. These included part-time students who received certification through the Back to Education Initiative (BTEI), the Community Education Support Programme and the Learning for Living programme.
They received awards for a wide range of subject areas including Communications, Computer Skills, Digital Marketing, Digital Skills, Early Childhood Care and Education, ECDL, Employability Skills – Horticulture, English Language, Entrepreneurial Skills, Event Production, Health Service Skills, Internet Skills, Mathematics, Media Studies, Online Form Filling for Farmers, Personal Development, Setting Learning Goals, Training and Development and Work Practice.
Staff from Patton’s Open Farm were also presented with certification achieved through Donegal ETB’s Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) process.
Certification was also achieved by students from two full-time programmes. Young people on the Ballyshannon Youthreach programme were presented with a range of QQI certificates, while adults on the Vocational Training Opportunities Scheme (VTOS) received awards for Business Administration (Ballyshannon) and eBusiness along with certification in ECDL, MOS, City and Guilds (Donegal Town).
A large number of the FET courses were co-funded by the Government of Ireland and the European Social Fund as part of the ESF Programme for Employability, Inclusion and Learning (PEIL) 2014-2020. Youthreach is also additionally co-funded by the Youth Employment Initiative.
The awards were presented by Donegal ETB Chairperson, Geoffrey Browne, who noted, “Donegal ETB’s FET Service has developed courses and programmes of learning that respond to the economic, cultural and social profile of the county. It’s an innovative service and I’d like to acknowledge the work of CE Anne McHugh and FET Director Cróna Gallagher for their work in ensuring that Donegal ETB FET service has both a strong national and local profile.”
A number of students spoke about their progression routes into further and higher education and employment, achieved because of their FET qualifications.
In 2018, over 11,000 students completed courses in more than one hundred venues across the county, making Donegal ETB the largest FET provider in the county. Its wide range of courses can be found on the course finder section of its website (www.donegaletb.ie/coursefinder).
You can view the photographic video of the awards here.
Image credit: Jmac
