An Ireland education

By Lisa Roulston
Courier Staff

In the early 20th century 15,000 children were without education and thousands attended school only three days a week, while the rest of their time was spent working in the mill to support their families. Also in 1920, only six out of the 194 primary schools in Belfast were classed as “satisfactory” compared to other schools in the United Kingdom. It was time for a change.

Today there are three main types of educational institutions: primary school, high school and university, with more than 350,000 children in full-time education. In addition, there are five regional Library and Education Boards providing an annual educational budget of 1.3 million pounds, which is equivalent to approximately $2.3 million. Current reports indicate that 96.9% of students leave high school with a high standard of education and 3.1% leave with no formal qualifications.

In Ireland there are eight universities, four of which are in the North. They are the University of Ulster, Queens University, Stranmillis College University and St. Mary’s College University.

At the University of Ulster, where I attend, it has four campuses: Belfast, Jordanstown, Colerain and Magee. As for the Jordans-town campus, where I am enrolled in classes, it is located a few miles north of Belfast situated on the shore of Belfast Lough.  It is a large complex divided into modern and seventies-style buildings with views of the Mountains of Mourne and Belfast’s Hills. It is the largest of the four campuses and there can be 10,000 or more students enrolled at the university in any year.

There are five Faculties on the Jordanstown campus and they are as follows:

The Faculty of Arts

This Faculty offers a wide range of courses within the five schools including: Languages and Literature, Media and Performing Arts, History and International Affairs.

The Faculty of Business Management

This Faculty consists of 140 academic staff and eight academic units. These include: Hotel, Leisure and Tourism, Accounting, Business Organization and Management, Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Strategy.

The Faculty of Engineering

The Faculty of Engineering consists of six schools, including: Environment, Computing, Math-ematics and Electrical and Mechanical Engineering.

The Faculty of Life and Health Sciences

This Faculty has an international reputation for the research it has preformed, covering a variety of biological and biomedical environmental sciences. You can study Nursing, Psychology and continue to Postgraduate Medicine.  

The Faculty of Social Sciences

This Faculty operates across all four campuses and there are seven schools within this faculty including: Communication, Econ-omics, Politics, Education and Sociology.

However the most important thing to an Irish student is not what they are studying, but rather where the nearest student union is located.

The Student Union

The Students Union plays a vital role and is an integral part of the university experience.  The Union is founded on the basis of providing its members, the students, to pass through the university supported by representation. All students at the University of Ulster are automatically a Student Union member and it n has become the largest part of the University, with a block grant of $200,000 to look after the interests of all the students.  

However, if you don’t want to get involved in any clubs, on each campus, the Student Union has a lounge and a bar.  Most, if not all of the students will regularly socialize there, have a few drinks after class and continue onto a night club later that evening.

As for the International proportion of the University, the University of Ulster encourages applications from international students. There are over 1,000 students from more that 60 countries worldwide enrolled and taking part in programs at the University or overseas.

I would strongly recommend anyone interested in studying in Ireland to take the opportunities available. If you would like more information about studying at the University of Ulster, visit www.ulst.ac.uk.