Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

134 ENGAGING YOUNG PEOPLE?Just they made me sign this contract, I said okay, I have to get me thumb out hereand start getting a bit more serious, so about this time last year, summer came upand the thing is I didn’t really talk to many people in the college so that was kindof why then. After I came, I remember last September I came back, I just startedtalking, there’s two guys in my course, one of them knew a mate I knew from myold college, so I said I’ll hang around with you guys.Were they alright?Yeah, they’re sound yeah, I still talk to them, hang around with them today like.(Maurice, 21, completed LCA, student)Another respondent, Zoe, dropped out of LCA in fifth year and began anumber of FETAC courses in a local Youthreach Centre. Zoe claimed aFÁS allowance for two years in the Youthreach centre and during this timeshe succeeded in completing her Junior Certificate Maths and doingFETAC courses in a variety of subjects:How did Youthreach come about?Because a friend of mine went to it and she was, like two friends of mine went toit and they were saying like, come down, come down and allSo what was Youthreach offering …what were you able to do inthere?I got, see I failed Maths in the Junior Cert, so I got it down there, what else, I gotloads of qualifications down there, computers, communications skills,mathematics, few of them. (Zoe, 22, dropped out of LCA, unemployed)While she spoke positively about her experiences of the Youthreachprogramme, she particularly noted the teaching approach of theYouthreach trainers:So what do you think was the biggest change there, did peopletreat you differently do you think?Probably, because the group was so small like and it’s just you and, well inYouthreach there’s only a few teachers like and we call them by name…evenwhen I started, I called them miss and sir like, and they were like no, my name’sMel or my name’s .... (Zoe, 22, dropped out of LCA, unemployed)Zoe, with the advice of her trainers in Youthreach, went on to do theEuropean Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) course and also a course incredit control:Everybody was saying to me [to do it] and [the] ECDL qualification isrecognised all over the world, it’d be one great thing to have, so I went up to theactual course that she was in…and they [the staff] just said yeah. (Zoe, 22,dropped out of LCA, unemployed)She then got a full-time job in credit control but at the time of interviewhad been let go and was looking for work:I was just, they just called me in on Thursday and said we’re going to have to letyou go because I was last in the door, first out like, they were saying we’ve nomoney, it’s not coming in.Did you like the work, what were you doing?