While the Leaving Certificate exams are just around the corner, thankfully there are now more options than ever before for accessing third-level education. This means your CAO points are not the be-all and end-all.
For those worried about points, or worried about choosing the wrong third-level course, one option to consider is a Post Leaving Certificate (PLC) course.
A PLC is a programme for people who have finished post-primary school, as well as adults returning to education. They usually last one to two years and offer a valuable pathway for anyone who wants to strengthen their skills and confidence before progressing to third level.
They provide an opportunity to focus on a particular subject area, develop independent study skills and improve academic readiness, especially for those who may not have the points for their preferred CAO course.
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Donnchadh O’Mahony is a guidance counsellor at Loreto College, St Stephen’s Green in Dublin. He says PLCs are “more of a transition year than transition year itself because you’re transitioning from secondary school to third-level“. He adds: “It’s ideal to set you up for success in third-level, because it trains you in a lot of skills that you’re going to need for third-level.”
While many universities reserve a number of places for students who successfully complete a relevant Level 5 PLC, O’Mahony notes “you’re not guaranteed a progression to CAO – where in tertiary degrees, you’re guaranteed that progression".
There isn’t a particular student who “should or shouldn’t” consider doing a PLC, he says. In PLCs, you may meet students who felt they were “not socially mature enough, maybe not academically mature enough” for university. There will also be students who “didn’t meet entry requirements for a particular course on the CAO – anybody who wants to go into the world of work, a Leaving Cert Applied student who wants to go to college“.
It gave me a bit of hope for my future and proved to myself I was capable of academic work
— Ryan Finnegan
Anyone who hasn’t done a Leaving Cert can also apply for a PLC. Contact your local Education and Training Board to find out what assessment you must complete to apply.
After missing out on the points for his desired psychology courses on the CAO in 2021, Ryan Finnegan did a PLC in Applied Psychology at Blackrock College of Further Education. “It gave me a bit of hope for my future and proved to myself I was capable of academic work, considering how devastated I was after not getting the points I needed,” he said.
One challenge of the PLC for Finnegan was “the pressure” of competition for a Level 8 course through the PLC route. Of this, he says: “You kind of needed to get full marks across the board, specifically for my course and what I wanted to study.”
He is now in his final year of Applied Psychology at Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) in Dublin. “I never even originally thought about it, because the points were so high that I didn’t even consider it.”
He says having the PLC behind him helped “a huge amount” in his first couple of years at IADT. “There was so much overlap with first year and second year [of] Applied Psychology. I did cover parts of those in the PLC so it was kind of more of a refresher.”
Finnegan recommends considering a PLC as “you get to study what you’re interested in and be graded on that, rather than letting grades from subjects of zero interest determine whether you get into your course that you really want”. He adds: “It can also affirm whether your interest will hold once you actually start studying the subject, rather than spending the tuition or moving from home to study a course you find later you don’t actually enjoy.”
Had I not done the PLC in art, I wouldn’t have had that skill set, or even just the confidence to say I could do that
— Ruby Murphy
Ruby Murphy is a third-year English and Philosophy student at Trinity College Dublin. She was accepted into this course through the CAO after her Leaving Cert, but deferred for a year to explore other options through an art portfolio PLC at Liberties College.
Murphy, whose favourite subject in secondary school was art, “wanted to decide whether an art course or traditional academia was the right option” for her. She says she “hadn’t experienced what it was like to do art full-time and the PLC really allowed me to do that”.
Murphy feels doing the PLC gave her “room to navigate what it meant to do education on my own terms”.
“I really grew, it deepened my friendships,” she says. “I also partied – I can’t lie. I got partying out of my system in the PLC. It meant that when I went into college in first year, it wasn’t that I didn’t go out, but I was able to be more focused because it was something I was actively choosing, not falling into.”
Murphy decided to take her place in Trinity after a teacher in her PLC encouraged her to pursue the course at Trinity, as her art “had a lot of writing in it”.
In her second year at Trinity, she joined the prestigious Laidlaw Scholars Leadership and Research Programme, which involves a funded, supervised research project, skills training and leadership workshops.
Murphy credits the skills she acquired in her PLC as the inspiration for her Laidlaw research project, which was based on literary representations of the Magdalene Laundries. “I was able to bring creativity to it”, she says. “Had I not done the PLC in art, I wouldn’t have had that skill set, or even just the confidence to say I could do that.”
She says PLCs allow you to make “an informed decision about your own education”, giving you space to “grow and make mistakes and get to know yourself better.”
Artist Carl Hickey also pursued an art portfolio PLC, more than 10 years ago at Ballyfermot College of Further Education (BCFE), before graduating with a first class honours degree from National College of Art and Design in 2022, where he received The Dean Residency Award for his graduate show.
Now working full-time in the Pallas Studios in Dublin, Hickey says it was a “snowball effect” that led to his career today. “A teacher woke me up in LCVP and she was like, fill out your CAO course,” he says. She told him to “have a look at PLCs” and to try one in a subject he’s interested in.
With an interest in street art, Hickey applied for the art portfolio PLC at BCFE. He praises the interview process of PLC applications, which he says is “beneficial to someone that has ambition, but doesn’t actually know how to show it off in their work, especially in the early stages”.
Growing up in Clondalkin, Dublin, Hickey says he remembers not knowing “what to do whatsoever at this stage, because I remember thinking I’m just going to get a job and chill out, which is so funny, because now I have such an ambition to do what I’m doing”.
He says he learned a lot about structure and discipline within the PLC, which he has maintained in his career as an artist. “I still have the structure of a Monday-to-Friday routine with art that I learnt from the PLC, because, even if you don’t want to, you know you have to get up and go. I haven’t had a normal job since January 2022, so trying to discipline yourself is something you need to learn early on. A PLC helps you to do that.”
Hickey’s paintings focus on real-life situations and moments, from the car that crashed into a shop on Dublin’s Dame Street last November, to a jazz band playing in O’Regans pub on South Great George’s Street.
He is currently preparing for his exhibition of oil paintings, entitled You and Me Day and Night, on July 24th with Herman’s.
