Posted on: 19 December 2007
The Bridge to College Programme (B2C) was officially launched by the Provost of Trinity College, Dr John Hegarty and CEO of Suas, Dr. Colman Farrel on December 19th last. The programme, which began in November has already provided almost 100 transition year students with a week long, pioneering learning experience delivered by volunteer TCD students. The B2C is a partnership between Suas Educational Development, Trinity College ‘s Access Programme (TAP), the Centre for Research for IT in Education (CRITE), and aims to promote access to third level education.
The programme presents the capabilities of ICT in a way that complements and enriches school initiatives whilst also giving the transition year students the benefits of learning from and interacting with college undergraduates and postgraduates. Initial funding for B2C has been gratefully provided by Pobal and key corporate supporters include the Ireland Fund, Dell and SAS. The Trinity Foundation and Suas have recently begun a fundraising programme to secure financial support to give over 600 young people the opportunity, over the next two years, to benefit from the exciting B2C programme and to expand the programme nationwide.
“As part of its ongoing commitment to tackling educational disadvantage, Trinity is delighted to be involved in this innovative partnership with Suas – bringing to bear different perspectives and expertise i.e. that of TAP, CRITE and Suas,” stated Dr John Hegarty , Provost of Trinity College. “The partners have created a learning environment where young people can have positive learning experiences through the creative use of technology, whilst in parallel exciting them about the prospect of going onto third level education.”
In support of the B2C initiative Education and Science Minister, Mary Hanafin stated: “We know that higher education access programmes are most effective when they are delivered in partnership with the institutions, the students and the wider education community, towards the common goal of increasing equity of access to higher education for everyone. The Suas initiative is an excellent example of this process in operation and I wish it continued success with this work.”
