Last Chance for Free IT Training at Family Centres
People looking to become IT literate have a final chance to avail of a free IT literacy training programme being run by five of the Family Resource Centres in Kilkenny and Carlow.
The training programme was established by Minister of Communications, Pat Rabbit, to address the worrying statistic that twenty years on in our information age society only one in three Irish adults is currently IT literate.
Kilkenny Multimedia Manager, Liz Hogan, and I.T. tutor at the computer training centre in the Fr. McGrath Centre, said:
‘No matter your age, everyone these days needs to be able to access the world wide web and new developments in the information age means more and more services can only be accessed by using the internet.’
‘Any adult without these new literacy skills is already at a considerable disadvantage but in future this disadvantage will grow as more companies and government agencies move their services online and now, nearly every employer needs their staff to have some level of I.T. literacy.’
The free four to six hour training programme will teach any adult how to access the internet, make bookings or purchases online, download documents or visit government sites to look up information on their services.
Nearly 1,000 people have already taken up the challenge to become part of the information age society and undertook training at the nine participating family centres in the south east over the last six month.
Many adults have also took the opportunity to do further IT training at the Family Centres after completing the short IT Literacy Course.
The Department encouraged IT training centres to charge a nominal fee for the services but nearly all of the Family Centres providing the training in the South East have waived this charge.
Many of the Family Centres will continue to offer this service free to adults when the scheme ends later in November as part of their not for profit IT public training services for children and adults.
The service is being run from the IT training facilities in Newpark Close and the Fr. McGrath Centre in Kilkenny City, Droichead in Callan, The Mill Family Centre in Urlingford and Bagenalstown FRC in Carlow.
Or people can ring Liz at the Fr. McGrath Centre on 056 7751988 for further details or contact numbers for Family Resource Centres in their area.