Animal care assistant students have gone on to work in animal grooming, animal health and animal rescue centres, as well pet shops and zoos, or to start their own business. Photograph: iStockwill dominate the next few months for most sixth year students. The stress can be overwhelming, and can lead to courses outside the CAO being sidelined or forgotten.
Over the past decade, the quality of post-Leaving Cert courses have improved dramatically, and they’re no longer seen as merely a fallback option for those who do not get the CAO points they hope for. Quantity surveyors are, globally, in short supply. Although parents and students can, understandably, be concerned about the construction industry’s job prospects in the event of an economic or property crash, quantity surveying graduates develop skills including project management, leadership, negotiation, strategic thinking and finance, which are highly in-demand across a range of industries, not just engineering.
More than 10 years on, graduates of the Froebel department of primary and early childhood education are trained to nurture the imaginations of children and develop their critical faculties, with active, student-centred approaches. Academic staff research is focused on classroom-based research. At TU Dublin, the first year of this three-year, level seven course on the Blanchardstown campus features a mix of computer, electrical, mechanical and robotics engineering.
The National College of Ireland, based on Dublin’s docklands, offers a two-year, level six Higher Certificate in International Financial Services apprenticeship, and a two-year level eight Higher Diploma in Financial Services Analytics apprenticeship. Today, most jobs involve sitting at a desk, and this really isn’t for everyone; some neurodivergent people, in particular, may struggle to sit still all day.trains graduates to design habitats for humans and animals, improving the design of our cities and rural lands. They design playgrounds, rooftop gardens, parks, streetscapes and cites; advising on waterbodies and countryside and wild habitats.
But these were often empty platitudes and that’s because, until relatively recently, there really were few options outside the CAO. Even students who did really well in their PLC course and met all the requirements to make it to college were, often, missing out on a college place because of random selection.