30 May 2018
By Elaine Murphy
elaine@TheCork.ie
Educate Together and Griffith College Cork today reached an agreement to rent lecture rooms to Cork Educate Together Secondary School, at Griffith’s five-acre, third-level higher education college on Wellington Road.
A permanent site for the school was recently purchased by the Department of Education and Skills in Douglas Village, on which a state-of-the-art school is due to be constructed over the coming two years.
Colm O’Connor, Principal of the school comments: “As Griffith College’s large campus is fully refurbished to meet the needs of a third level Higher Education Institution it will provide an excellent temporary location for our school. As the majority of our students come from the Douglas/Carrigaline catchment area, we look forward to the construction of our new school building commencing as soon as possible”. Mr. O’Connor also thanked Pat Curran, Principal of St Angela’s for his support in recent weeks.
Cork Education News
Head of Griffith College Cork, Jim Daly, says ‘As the largest independent third level college in the region, located on the City’s north side, Griffith College is delighted to be able to temporarily accommodate Cork Educate Together Secondary School on our five-acre campus. We hope to see many of these students progress on to our degree courses in time.’
Cork Educate Together Secondary School have been located in Nagle Community College for two years, since the school opened in September 2016. Mr. O’Connor said “We’d like to sincerely thank Cork ETB, and the students, staff and Board of Nagle CC, for accommodating our school during this period. The shared space posed occasional challenges for both school communities, but our memories of both Nagle’s students and staff will be warm”.
Despite accommodation difficulties, the school has thrived, growing from 45 students in their first year to 200 in their third; and gaining a reputation as an innovative school, through its advocacy for Student Voice, technology in the classroom and problem-based learning.
Griffith College is Ireland’s largest independent third level college and is home to 7,000 learners at its four locations in Dublin (two campuses), Cork and Limerick. Griffith College Cork’s Wellington Road campus provides a range of full and part-time courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level. These include courses in Business, Law, Computing, Media & Journalism, Pharmaceutical Management. Griffith also offers a range of short courses and Professional Accountancy programmes.