‘You can’t put a value on getting an education’

THE Ballincollig Youthreach centre has more people trying to get in than are already learning for the first time in director Eric McNally’s six years of working there.

He has noticed the waiting list spiral since the autumn and now there are 40 people hoping to start training there compared with 35 students currently being taught.

Like around 100 other such centres funded by the Department of Education around the country, it offers second-chance education for young people aged 15 to 20 who left school early without any qualifications or vocational training. While around a dozen students at the Ballincollig centre have been referred from schools where they have been in trouble or were not suited to mainstream education, most of Eric’s students have joined after a gap of a few years in their education.