Green light for new Cavan Institute campus
The green light has been given to the Cavan Monaghan Education and Training Board (CMETB) to proceed to the next stage of a new campus at Cavan Institute.
Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris, is visiting the college this morning to deliver the good news in person.
The project envisages a state-of-the-art further education campus built adjacent to the existing facility on Cathedral Road in Cavan Town. This proposal is to serve 1,000 students by building a new centralised FET provision for Cavan Institute. The proposed new campus is part of the Government’s Further Education and Training (FET) ‘Colleges of the Future’ strategy, which seeks to streamline FET provision around the country, making pathways into Further Education and Training more accessible for all.
Speaking this morning, Minister Harris said: “This is a brilliant day for Cavan. It has been chosen as one of 10 locations to proceed to develop their proposal for a new campus, as part of the FET College of the Future strategy.
"This has been a project earmarked for a number of years but today, we are finally giv-ing it the go-ahead to the next stage of proposal development.
“This will increase the number of learners who can study in Cavan and crucially, im-prove links with higher education institutions across the island of Ireland.
The new college campus will be complementary to and work in collaboration with the existing CMETB FET Campus on the outskirts of Cavan Town, to further strengthen the provision of FET programmes at Levels 5 and 6, as well as delivering on apprentice-ships. Other exciting initiatives included in the proposal are higher education pro-grammes in partnership with higher education institutes and part-time programmes.
“We have also invested in the Dún Uí Neill site (FET Campus) with the modular ac-commodation to open shortly.
“The College of the Future Major Projects Fund will support the implementation of the vision set out in the Further Education and Training Strategy. This Fund, and the pro-posed development in Cavan, has the potential to deliver on a range of strategic objec-tives. It is great that the proposal will now proceed to Preliminary Business Case Stage,” said Minister Harris.
Dr Fiona McGrath, chief executive of CMETB said: “Minister Harris’ announcement is warmly welcomed by CMETB as a very positive development for Further Education and Training in our region.
“The announcement marks an important milestone in support of our ambitions to lead and deliver excellence in education and training. The proposed new campus for Cavan Institute will have state-of-the-art facilities to provide accessible FET programmes that support the needs of the economy in the region and our local communities, I look for-ward to seeing the project progress.”