The Higher Education Authority have said that free third-level courses will be offered to homemakers for the first time through their Springboard programme.
Yesterday, the HEA issued a call for new programmes for
Springboard 2017 and announced a number of changes to this year's programme, including the fact that all courses will now be available to homemakers.
Since June of last year the programme has offered almost 6,000 free places on 181 third-level courses, leading to awards at certificate, degree and post-graduate level. Until now, Springboard has been primarily targeted at jobseekers with a previous history of employment.
A large number of the courses on offer are free, full-time or part-time conversion courses in the area of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). The government body say that these conversion courses are open to suitably qualified applicants, regardless of their employment status.
New courses in the bio-pharma and medical devices sector have now been added for those who wish to upskill in this sector, or reskill from their current sector, irrespective of whether they are currently employed or not.
The new programme is open to both public and private higher education institutions and the deadline for submissions is 1pm on Friday the 24th of March.
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