Ms Natalia Leane:

It is a little different for me. I went into a full-time programme for my first year. Then I moved onto a Springboard course, which involves people who have been working getting back into education. I was in full-time education but because of the lack of interest, this was the programme that was running. I was integrated into a class that was on Springboard and it worked out really well for me. Many of my classmates would not have gone on in full-time education were it not for Springboard and the funding we got. We were paying €3,000 per year plus college fees for the first year we did. In the second year, we were paying around €300 to engage with the Springboard programme. We got uniforms on top of that and we got time to work. In my experience, the half-education, half-work system works out really well as long as there is backup funding to help students with college fees. If I were to pay the same college fees as I was paying in the first year and then only doing it part-time in order to work as well, that would not be to my benefit. The backup funding we got to do the part-time course meant that it worked out really well and we got to see the industry while we were there.