Beacon Commended Status for Two SERC Projects

Student-centred projects at South Eastern Regional College (SERC) have been commended in two categories for the Association of Colleges (AoC) Beacon Awards 2024/2025. The shortlist of finalists will be announced on Tuesday 12 November. 

SERC’s Partnerships, Education, App, Recharge room (PEAR) project has been recognised in the Support for Students category, and the Partnerships, Inclusion, Enhancing Education (PIE) project has been commended for the award for Widening Participation.  

The PEAR Project helps student carers balance academic responsibilities with caring for a loved one. The project has internal and external partners, collaborating with the South Eastern, Belfast, and Northern Health and Social Care Trusts, and with Action for Children, to offer comprehensive support to student carers. This includes networking opportunities, initiatives to promote psychological well-being, and financial advice.  

The project creates a tailored support system within SERC, with flexible arrangements and a ‘carer card’ to identify those who may need to deal with emergency situations. There is also 24-hour App support for student carers offering a comprehensive package of health and well-being support.  As a result of engagement with student carers, recharge rooms have been established at three busy campuses. These rooms offer self-help mental health therapies for student carers. 

The PIE project aims to break down gender barriers in engineering education and to address challenges faced by individuals from low-income backgrounds. Since 2020, the strategy has included developing Partnerships with significant industry bodies and funders, such as the Institute of Engineering and Technology and the All Island Fund.   This has helped the team implement strategic projects with Dundalk Institute of Technology and Limerick University. The Inclusion element has seen a large-scale engineering engagement programme with females, and has involved working extensively with schools to promote inclusion and diversity in the industry. The final strand, Enhancing Education has seen the development of an online engineering bridge-building game to help young people see the fun side of the industry. Over the last four years, this project has significantly increased programme enrolments, including a 10% rise in female students. 

Finalists for the Beacon Awards will be revealed on Tuesday 12 November during the AoC annual conference and the winners will be announced in March 2025.