Management at Mary Immaculate College’s Thurles campus have told the Higher Education Minister that they’re ready to expand their offering.
Around 500 students are enrolled in courses at St Patrick’s in Thurles for the new academic year, a figure which puts them close to maximum capacity.
It was one of the campuses visited by Minister Simon Harris yesterday, who remarked that the landbank there makes it potentially ideal for further development.
Head of School at Mary I Thurles, Dr Finn Ó Murchú says they can do more with further investment.
“We currently have 500 students on campus and the campus doesn’t have the capacity to take any more. But we’re aware of the need to meet teacher supply concerns and issues.
“And in that regard we would like to expand our campus further. We had exploratory talks around different possibilities. One of them would be the possibility of Home Economics being offered on our campus.
“And we also discussed the greater variety of student profile that might come on campus. So we’re looking at supporting ‘further ed’ graduates and even more mature students”.
Speaking at Mary I in Thurles, Minister Harris was shown the vast landbank there which could be further developed into additional teaching facilities and accommodation.
He’s hopeful of further education development in Thurles.
“Here on the campus of MIC Thurles it’s so clear to see that there’s potential to do more. This is a great college training lots of teachers, a really important strategic objective for the Government.
“But there’s also so much land, I think maybe 40 acres, where we could do more. And I’d like to see how we could work together to do more particularly on the issue of student accommodation which is a real pinch point everywhere but is a particular pinch point perhaps in Thurles.”
