Town fights back

A LARGE provincial town has unveiled a visionary plan to beat the recession and position itself at the cutting edge of the smart economy.

Mallow in north Cork is set to become a national centre of excellence in the teaching of maths and science by establishing a series of partnerships between all of its schools, third-level colleges and businesses to ensure the town produces a generation equipped to work in the knowledge economy.

The ambitious project is being backed by the computer chip giant Intel, University College Cork (UCC), Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and the National Centre for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching and Learning (NCE-MSTL) based at the University of Limerick (UL).