TRALEE VTOS graduates enjoyed a celebration barbecue on Wednesday night before their annual awards ceremony on Wednesday night.
VTOS, which facilitates a return to education for adult learners, held their awards night for both leaving cert and QQI level graduates who were presented with their certificates.
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“Some of our students are still with us, but the night is also a great opportunity to catch up with past students to see how their doing,” said VTOS Course Co-ordinator, Mary Sheehy.
VTOS has been serving the community for 26 years. Formerly based in Moyderwell, the service has been in Clash, adjacent to the IT Tralee North Campus, for the past ten years.
“Some of them will have gone on to the Kerry College of Further Education, some of them to IT Tralee and one or two have gone on to university. So it’s their chance to come back and share their success story with us to let the students here now what’s ahead of them.”
Around 40 past and present students of VTOS received certs on the night. There was a special award for Tom Reidy who won student of the year.
The service is affectionately called “second chance education”. It’s for any adult who wishes to return to full time education that’s unemployed. The service has two roles, it gives people the confidence, skills and abilities to cope with going on with further training and also it’s a filter for people who want to go on and achieve at third level education and university.
“If people haven’t been to school for years, they can come here for a year or two years and they’re flying – it’s very important. We like to set people up for success, maybe they might not have had good experiences of school, so we wipe all those negatives and replace them with positives,” said Mary.
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