Donegal ETB’s Further Education and Training (FET) Service hosted its first ever independent Student Voice Forum on 11 February.
The purpose of the Forum, which is set to become an annual event, is to collect feedback from students on the effectiveness of Donegal’s FET provision to ensure it is responsive to student needs. Student views are essential to the development of policy and planning and for improving the quality of the Service.
Over one hundred students from across various full-time and part-time FET programmes and courses offered by Donegal ETB were invited to attend the Forum.
They were welcomed by Donegal ETB’s Director of FET, Cróna Gallagher and participated in a variety of activities to capture their thoughts, ideas and experiences of their educational journey with Donegal ETB.
Current students also heard inspiring stories from former FET students like Christopher McEleney, (Adult Leaving Certificate, VTOS) who is now undertaking a PhD at Letterkenny Institute of Technology and is ‘influencing policy at an EU level’ and Sheila Leeper who was made redundant from her job after 27 years of work and is now a valued member of Donegal ETB’s FET finance team, having completed the Accounting Technicians Ireland course through the FET Service.
Speaking about the event, Donegal ETB’s FET Quality Assurance Coordinator Joanne Whitelock said, “We were delighted to have this opportunity to meet with students from across the FET service to capture their views and opinions of their learning journey with us. We will be analysing the contributions from their lively discussions in the coming weeks to shape future learning opportunities within our Service.”
Report available here.
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Image credit: Clive Wasson Photography