There was a strong presence from Irish-medium schools and units on Wednesday, 25 November for the first Irish-medium eLearning conference, hosted at St Mary’s.

Organised jointly by C2k and An tÁisaonad/St Mary’s University College, the conference aimed to highlight to the schools the range of eLearning opportunities that are available within C2k services. Additionally, C2k wanted to listen to the Irish-medium sector in terms of additional projects in which it might wish to participate and to improve communication with the sector and stakeholders.

Opening the event, Professor Peter Finn, Principal of St Mary’s University College, emphasised the joined-up approach of the conference and how appropriate it was that the conference was being held in the College, which had been pioneering in Irish-medium teacher education since the early 1990s.


Gavin Boyd, Head of the Education Authority, echoed those words in his keynote address. The conference also featured presentations made by the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI), An tÁisaonad, the Council for the Curriculum, Education and Assessment (CCEA), the Curriculum Advisory and Support Service (CASS), C2k and a number of schools.

The conference was tailored to relay the views of Irish-medium schools and units with a number of discussion groups and to end with a plenary session.