Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

PROGRESSION TO FURTHER STUDY AND TRAINING 141Graham worked as a blocklayer when he left school and after sixmonths found an employer who took him on as an apprentice. He worksfor a large construction company and is in the final stages of hisapprenticeship:I’m still with the same company, yeah, still with the same old fella that’s teachingme the whole time…Just moving around, building site to building site.(Graham, 22, completed LCA, apprentice)Although he found the pace of instruction in his first session in FÁS tooslow, he then moved to Dublin for a second session with FÁS which hefound more challenging and enjoyed:Went back out on site for another five or six months and then I got called up toDublin for my, for ten weeks in college then as well, that was much harder.When you say it was much harder, how did it differ like?There was just stuff I never done before like, you know.So did you find it challenging or were you kind of into it like?Ah big time yeah, because I was away from home then as well I was studyingmore and just reading more and more.That would have been a whole new real experience I supposewouldn’t it?It was great, yeah.Did you enjoy it?Loved it. (Graham, 22, completed LCA, apprentice)Jack has recently qualified as a tiler and now owns his own tilingbusiness. He left LCA in fifth year for a job in a factory but his employerwould not keep him on unless he completed school so he left and got anapprenticeship with a tiling company:He said look I told you to go back, I don’t want you here I said, I want you toget an education, come back to me then. … I was there about six months and hetold me to go back and get me Leaving Cert, he said you’d be better off thanworking in a factory, so I left that factory and I became an apprentice tiler, wentfrom there then, now I own my own business. (Jack, 23, dropped out ofLCA, employed)Jack had enjoyed the LCA and felt it gave him a good idea of what itwas going to be like in the labour force:I found it [the LCA] was a good eye opener into the fact that you were going toleave and go straight into the work force, do you get me?Right, okay.As far as it went like that, if you were to be still in school and it got you a lotwiser on things that you were about to walk into you know, the likes of everydaylife and what you needed. There was some things, don’t get me wrong, they didn’tgive you everything you needed to know. (Jack, 23, dropped out of LCA,employed)Donal also left school in the summer of fifth year to begin hisapprenticeship as a plasterer: