Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

46 ENGAGING YOUNG PEOPLE?it should be just explained absolutely everything about it and after you finish youshould be, if you pass with a distinction or something high, you should get into agood course like after, in college. So I think an advantage should be that thereshould be an option like. (Linda, 21, completed LCA, student)Other respondents, who were happy with the LCA overall, also feltmisinformed about the limitations of LCA in entering third level. Mary wasdiscouraged from going to college when she realised she needed the LCEin order to do the course she wanted:What disappointed me was, that when you finish you can’t really go into a collegestraight away and that was a bit of a disappointment because I think it makesyou lazy then.Were you aware of that when you were deciding?No, well we were given other options…but what I actually wanted, I wanted towork with the special needs or old people where I would have had to take a yearout and do a proper, my Leaving Cert over and go back then and try for college,which put me off altogether then. (Mary, 22, completed LCA, home duties)Ronan developed an interest in architecture during his LCA workexperience and, although he enjoyed the course overall, he wasdisappointed in sixth year when he found out that he could not go straightto college:Basically just found it out in sixth year you know, you only find out when youstart looking for colleges to go to, then you realise the marks you need for this andthat and what college take people from LCA, because there is some colleges thatdon’t, there’s probably a lot of college that don’t take [LCA]. (Ronan, 25,completed LCA, apprentice)It is possible using multivariate analysis of the longitudinal study (SeeTable 4.1) to explore the simultaneous impact of prior characteristics ofstudents on their likelihood of entering LCA. The data show that femalestudents are less likely to take LCA than their male counterparts and olderstudents are more likely to take LCA. Working-class students and thosefrom non-employed households are most likely to take the programme. Incontrast, those from professional or farming backgrounds are very unlikelyto take the programme. Evidence from interviews with young people alsoshows that occupation and educational attainment levels within their familyinfluences their decision making process both in school and when theyleave.