Students bond on trip to Málaga

Mullingar CTC Erasmus programme

The experience of a lifetime, a huge learning curve, and a tremendous bonding experience, were some of the thoughts of a group from Mullingar Community Training Centre who went on an Erasmus trip to Málaga, Spain.

“It was one of the best experiences of my life!” declared Ryan Carlin, who had never been abroad before. Ryan is part of the music course at the centre and hopes to become a music producer.

“Málaga was beautiful and I feel I really got to know everyone,” said Lucy Flood. She explained that the students are on different courses and this trip was a real bonding experience. Lucy is doing the pre-apprenticeship course and hopes to become a carpenter.

Megan Byrne is also doing a pre-apprenticeship course and hopes to become a painter decorator. She designed the logos on the tops and caps the group wore on the trip. Megan loved the Picasso museum: “It was fabulous, and the Cathedral was gorgeous,” she said.

Lily Jordan is doing the hairdressing course. She found the views in and around Málaga amazing as they swept through the countryside in cars or by bus.

They all loved the Caminito del Rey walk. “We did 35,000 steps in one day,” said Patricia Doyle, the catering course instructor.

Kamron Nolan is doing a pre-apprenticeship course and hopes to become an electrician. He had never been to a hot country before and said they had “loads of fun in Spain”.

Mohammad Ragav and Vladislav Sharapov are on the sport and fitness course and they both hope to go on to college. Mohammad “loved Málaga” and Vladislav declared that “the trip was great!”.

Emma Murphy is the hairdressing instructor and she too found “it was lovely to get to know everyone – even when we came back, to hear what it meant to everyone was great, and it was great to be a part of that”.

Pat Flanagan, the pre-apprenticeship instructor, said: “The Erasmus opportunity is massive for younger people, it allows them to travel and see other ways of doing things. They all say they would travel again.”

Mr Flanagan was impressed with how well the students managed. “From the outset, they took ownership of it. They organised the trip themselves and took control,” he said, adding that “it was great for their self-development and they were great”.

“It was a learning experience for me to watch them organise everything and how well they coped,” he said.

“It was a massive learning curve for the trainees, many of them had never been in an airport before,” said Patricia Doyle. She too was impressed by the trainees and said that a testament to how impressive they were was the fact that they have been invited back by the students at the school in Málaga.

Through the Erasmus programme, the centre is offering participants a chance to savour the whole experience of travel and explore new countries and cultures.

Mark Bannon, manager of the training centre, explained that schools pick the best students for the Erasmus experience.

“Ours wouldn’t have a great history in school, so they would never even have been shortlisted. They now get the chance to go,” he said.

This year, the centre will be sending 10 learners on a two-week work experience trip, either to Málaga or Portugal, and a group to Slovakia, Mr Bannon said.

The centre has partnered with a music school in Slovakia and a group from the Mullingar music course will join students from all over Europe in putting on a production of singing, dancing, drama and music. They are also in early talks about bringing a group from the sports course skiing in Sweden later this year.

Two students from Málaga will be coming to Mullingar in June for work experience, and staff and students from Slovakia will be coming over for a week in April.

The Mullingar Community Training Centre is at St Mary’s Hall on Bishopsgate Street. “A little hidden gem in the town,” is how Mark describes their operation.

The centre offers a second chance to early school leavers and those who did not reach their full potential in mainstream education. Its success rate is high and almost all graduates progress to further education or employment.

“It would be rare for an early school leaver to get into university as they would be competing with mainstream Leaving Cert students,” Mark said, but through the Level 5 programme participants can now get CAO points and progress to third level.

Work experience is a huge part of what the centre does and Mr Bannon is pleased that “more often than not, employers tend to keep the learners on afterwards”.

The centre has 60 participants and 10 staff. It offers courses in pre-apprenticeship, catering, IT and office skills, sport and fitness, hairdressing, and the ground breaking sound engineering and music performance course.

The “learner first” ethos enables the centre to offer an array of experiences and self-development options to participants, Mr Bannon remarked.

A native of Moate, Mark Bannon took over from Kathleen Gaffney as manager of the centre seven years ago. Prior to that he had worked in Athlone and in inner city Dublin.