St Pat’s College and Mannok partner up

Students in St Patrick’s College Cavan will be given a unique opportunity to access career insights, internships and blended learning opportunities at a leading manufacturing firm.

The partnership between Mannok and the boys secondary school was officially launched last Friday in a special ceremony that marked the culmination of a week of events as part of Computer Science Week.

St Pat’s is the fourth school to partner with the company, and the first in the Republic, on its Mannok Futures Digital Innovation Hub - making it an award-winning, cross-border programme.

Mannok’s chief financial officer, Dara O’Reilly, believes Mannok’s educational partnerships with schools will be a key factor in the future of the company and hopes some students from these schools, in time, will become valued employees.

“The goal of this, from our perspective, is to provide local students with an opportunity to see the highly skilled and varied roles that exist in businesses in our local area, giving real-life experience and employment opportunities in the future,” he explained.

As part of the initiative, Mannok employed two of St Pat’s computer science students, Ahmed Cheema and Luke Hand, for an internship last summer.

Head prefect Ahmed was thrilled to be selected and, throughout his internship, improved his computer skills and became more confident working in a team.

“I learned new coding applications, new skills and new techniques, but also I learned interpersonal skills and presenting skills,” he revealed.

Agreeing with his fellow student, IT prefect Luke Hand gave an insight into his daily tasks in the company.

“I spent my time in data analytics working on how well their performance for their new 2030 vision page was working and how many people were downloading the leaflets from that page... I analysed how different forms of advertisement were affecting how many people were downloading that page,” he detailed.

Mr O’Reilly praised Ahmed and Luke for their work saying they were “a credit to their school” and said the company looked forward to welcoming more placement students from St Pat’s in the coming years.

“The continued future economic development of our local region is a fundamental element of the approach we at Mannok take to operating our business. Key to this being a success is a focus on business succession planning,” he said.

Guest speaker at the event was Fianna Fáil TD Brendan Smith. Describing Mannok as a “hugely important employer in our county”, he said: “I am delighted you have chosen Cavan as your first partnership school in this state, and I have no doubt that the school, the students and Mannok will derive great benefits from this partnership going forward.”

St Patrick’s College principal, Christopher Rowley, said that Computer Science was introduced as a Leaving Cert subject in 2020 and has grown in popularity with 43 students are set to sit the exam in 2023. “This burgeoning area of education and careers was easy to identify for an educational partnership, as it is mutually beneficial. Mannok offers real life, realtime and local exposure for our students in this area and Mannok get access to a fantastic pool of talent that may ultimately benefit their workplace, but at the centre of the partnership are the students, the partnership is very much about providing opportunity for them and they will benefit in a vast range of ways,” he said.

Enhancing the employability of students is another significant element of the partnership, which will include practical careers-focused activities such as interview skills, development activities and careers insights events.