On Saturday 23 November, MIC Thurles will open its doors to hundreds of prospective students interested in pursuing careers in post-primary teaching. Taking place as part of College Awareness Week, a national week which celebrates going to college, the MIC Thurles Open Day will provide second level students, students who are currently in further education programmes and mature students with the opportunity to explore the programmes on offer and the facilities available at the Thurles campus.
Now established as an innovative college of post-primary teacher education, MIC Thurles has continued to grow in popularity. This is reflected in the addition of two new programmes – the BA in Education, Mathematics and Gaeilge (MI013) which commenced in September 2019 and the BA in Education, Mathematics and Business Studies (MI014) which will commence in September 2020.
Speaking about the calibre of the programmes on offer, Dr Finn Ó Murchú, Head of School of Education (Post-Primary) noted, “We have a wonderful teacher preparation programme here in MIC Thurles, which is built on promoting a caring learning environment that fosters students’ talents and goals by ensuring high quality teaching, learning and assessment experiences. The success of our approach is evidenced by the recent statistics that show approximately 90% of MIC Thurles graduates successfully secured teaching positions within the first year following graduation.”
Now in her third year of the BA in Education, Business Studies and Religious Studies (MI011), Ciara Horan, says of college life at MIC Thurles, “The college is amazing, the lecturers and staff are always looking for ways to assist us while also helping us become more confident and independent. I’ve just been given an opportunity to take up a College-sponsored 2-week study visit to Tokyo in January 2020, which will no doubt enhance my development as a teacher.”
She continued by saying, “Every day we see efforts by all our lecturers to make a difference to our learning experience so we can make a difference to the students we will teach. Equally as the MISU (Students’ Union) representative on the Thurles campus, I work with the College community and support them to come up with new ideas on how to further improve the student experience.”
In total MIC Thurles has a population of 360 students studying across five post-primary teacher education programmes, which include combinations of the following subjects: Accounting, Business, Gaeilge, Theology, Religious Studies and Mathematics. These concurrent teacher education programmes are structured so that the school placement and education components are included in each year of the programme. All programmes at the College are accredited and recognised by the Teaching Council and graduates are qualified to teach to honours Leaving Certificate level after completion of their degree
Dr Ó Murchú noted, “Each year we strive to enhance the quality of what we do as we attend to the three-way interaction of personal, professional and pedagogical development to support our students to be the teacher they wish to be while challenging them to be the teacher we think they need to be. Close ties with schools and our school placement programme, combined with specific subject and pedagogical knowledge, is a central feature of our degrees.”
He went on to say that the MIC Thurles Open Day is the perfect opportunity to find out about the various subject combinations, the range of curricular and extra-curricular resources on offer, undergraduate entrance scholarships and the new MIC Elite Sports Scholarship Scheme, and CAO Points Concession Scheme.
Registration for this event is not required. The Open Day will take place from 10.30am to 2pm with talks scheduled to take place at 10.30am and again at 12.30pm.
Full details at www.micopenday.ie.
You can find out more about College Awareness Week at here.
