merrion street

The Minister for Training and Skills, Ciarán Cannon TD, today launched the Centre for Lifelong Learning at St Angela's College, Sligo.

Speaking to the Centre, which was established last September, Minister Cannon said: "The wide range of educational and skills training programmes that the Centre provides on a flexible and part-time basis, demonstrate the high level of responsiveness that St. Angela’s College has to the educational needs of the community in the North–West region.

"The Centre’s provision of customised training tailored to the needs of local employers is a particularly impressive example of a higher education institution engaging with regional enterprise to make a very tangible contribution to the local economy and society.

"The summer camp for children of 12–15 years of age further illustrates the strong contribution that St. Angela’s College makes to the wider community in terms of educational outreach activities."

The Programme for Government acknowledges lifelong learning as being a high priority for Government, by expanding training options for jobseekers across the VEC, further and higher education sectors to facilitate upskilling of the labour force.

A total of 4,000 additional places were announced recently under the Jobs Initiative in the Post Leaving Certificate and Back to Education Initiative programmes.

"The recent economic downturn has magnified the importance of lifelong learning and workforce development: as jobs across Europe become increasingly more skill-intensive, the up-skilling of our people has become imperative," said Minister Cannon.

"The ‘knowledge economy’ needs people who can renew and refresh their skills and competencies over the course of their lives—people who are ‘job-shapers’ rather than merely ‘job-seekers’.

"It therefore gives me great pleasure to declare the Centre for Lifelong Learning at St. Angela’s College, Sligo to be officially launched."