St Angela’s signs agreement for teacher training chance
NORTH Connaught College in Tubbercurry has signed a Partnership Agreement to participate in the Access to Post-Primary Teaching (APT) project with St. Angela’s College.
North Connaught College becomes one of eight Further Education providers in the BMW region to take part in a pilot project which provides a direct entry route to initial teacher education from further education. The Access to Post-Primary Teaching (APT) project is a three-year joint initiative between St. Angela’s College and the National University of Ireland Galway, which aims to recruit and support individuals from under-represented groups into teaching. Welcoming the addition of North Connaught College to the APT project, Dr. Anne Taheny, President of St. Angela’s said:
“We are delighted to now have a partnership with two further education providers in County Sligo: North Connaught College Tubbercurry and Sligo College of Further Education.”
At the official signing of the Partnership Agreement, Mr. James Hardiman, Principal of North Connaught College noted that the partnership will allow students from their Childcare programme the opportunity to not only potentially pursue as career in second level teaching in the areas of Home Economics, Biology, Religious Education and Irish, but will also provide their students with the invaluable experience of taking part in Inreach and Outreach activities which are a unique feature of the APT project.
Another Sligo based college - Sligo College of Further Education was one of the first further education colleges to join the APT project last year.
Principal David McGuiness explained: “The APT Project has been very successful in offering a real and tangible route for Sligo CFE students to access a career in Post-Primary teaching.
“The programme has been pioneering in this regard and will help set the template for other HEI’s recruiting FE learners into programmes that traditionally been slow to take students from an FE background. From our College’s standpoint, we are delighted to support and promote the APT project as we see the benefit to the learners across our Childcare, Social Care and Food Science programmes.”