The Fr McGrath Centre and Newpark Close FRCs will be at the forefront on a new government drive to raise IT literacy skills and help improve Irish people’s employment skills for the 21st century labour market.
Local Minister, Phil Hogan, recently informed the Fr McGrath Centre that they were successful in their collective tender on behalf of 11 family centres in the south-east for a grant to help more people become IT literate in their targeted communities.
Now both city family centres, already with well established reputations in piloting and delivering innovative education and employment training services and a long track record of piloting IT services to Rapid communities in the city, will lead a new drive to train people of all ages to become IT literate in five hours or less.
Liz Hogan, manager and IT tutor of Kilkenny Multimedia, the state-of-the art computer training centre at the Fr McGrath Centre, said, “no matter your age, everyone these days needs to be able to access the world wide web and new developments in the information age means more and more services can only be accessed by using the internet.”
The 11 family centres in the south-east have collectively undertaken to teach nearly 2,000 adults IT literacy over an eight month period and many claim they can train most individuals in less than five hours.
For a nominal fee, with many of the centres waiving the small fee for those who are less well off, any adult can now get one-to-one support on a very basic course that will teach them to go online, send emails and check out government services or learn how to access airline tickets or other bargains on the web.
Family Resource Centres offering the new service from this week are the Fr. McGrath Centre and Newpark Close in the City and, thanks to FAS support, Happe House in Hebron Park. The Mill FRC and Droichead FRC in Urlingford and Callan are also offering the service to anyone in their county area and Bagenalstown FRC is offering the service to Carlow residents.
Details of the IT training course and its availability in your area can be had from your local family centre or by contacting Liz Hogan 056 7752144 at the Fr McGrath Centre.
