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MINISTER FOR HIGHER Education Simon Harris has today announced the creation of ten third-level courses designed for students with intellectual disabilities.
The courses will be delivered across ten locations throughout the country, with approximately 150 students expected to enroll in the first year.
Courses will be one to two years in length and have been specifically designed to meet the diverse range of needs of students with intellectual disabilities.
Speaking at the launch event in Dublin today, Minister Harris said:
“These courses have been designed with the learner at heart.
“When given the opportunity, students with an intellectual disability can thrive. Access to higher education can lead to employment. It can transform the lives of students and their families as well as society as a whole.”
Harris added that he was most excited about the courses that have a workplace element built into them.
“One of the areas I’m not extraordinarily proud of is the very low participation rates within our workforce of people with disability, and even lower participation of people with intellectual disability,” he said.
Harris also made the point that all of the courses announced today are accredited courses.
“Even talking to people this morning, I had comments from parents of people with disabilities asking ‘are these real courses and is it something real and meaningful for my child?’
“And the great thing is that it’s the exact same educational qualification that you or I would be able to access on the national framework of qualifications,” Harris said.
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For those on trackers….welcome to the level of interest rates that the rest of us have been paying for the last 15 years.
@Cable Stayed: i care what i pay, not what you pay
@Cable Stayed: I’m curious, why didn’t you take a tracker 15 years ago?
Is this an ad or advice?
They should expect the banks they kindly bailed out to absorb it.
i had less than 5 yrs on my variable rate fixed it for 3 yrs got a lower rate than i was actually paying . Happy Days
Fixed my tracker for 7 years after the first rate rise. In the famous words of Yazz… the only way is up baby
@Fi Wyse: what rate did you fix at
@shuttleJohn: 3% for 7 years.
My tracker wasn’t great 2.25% due to a tracker portability mortgage a year previously where I acquired an extra 1% for the luxury of it. 15 years left and €135k owing so felt like the right thing to do.
Just don’t pay the mortgage like so many in this country. No bank or court can touch you.
Mortgage is a long game my tracker has served me well. I’m willing to hold out. knee jerk is exactly what the banks want us to do before it crashes again. Look at the scaremongering that went on with the energy now we are all fixed to those prices for the next 18 months. Even though the cost of production has more than halved since winter.
have your say