Nutrition course

Darragh11

Hello everyone I'm 25 lost my job last August after doing an apprenticeship in refrigeration but work fried up, I'm still on my job seekers benefit until August but I would love to do a corse in nutrition but they are all so dear and can anyone tell me do I qualify as a mature student, could I still get paid from social welfare even when my stamps run out in August?

Abby19

Check out http://www.welfare.ie/EN/Schemes/BackToEducation/Pages/btea.aspx
and
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welfare/social_welfare_payments/back_to_education/back_to_education_allowance.html
You are on jobseekers, there is a qualifying period, but this is waived if you were made redundant and got a P50.

You are over 23, so you qualify as a mature student. Most degree courses require you to apply through the CAO, but the closing date was February 1st. It will reopen for late applications on March 5th.
http://www.cao.ie/index.php

This website
http://www.qualifax.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=192&Itemid=2
has a lot of info about courses of various levels in Ireland.
Figure out which course you want to do, then check if you are eligible. Contact the colleges and see if they will accept late applications. (e.g. Trinity has a separate application form that had to be in by the end of January and not sure if they accept late applications.)

A lot of courses are quite competitive, so they have access courses (I think you get the BTEA on that) to help prepare you for returning to full time education, you could contact the individual colleges for info.

If you don't have a degree yet you may be able to get a local authority grant. And if you attended third level but didn't finish, you can get the grant for the year's you didn't finish (e.g. left after year 2, you could get grant from year 3) or if you have a gap of (I think) 5 years you can apply for the full grant, but some authorities are apparently becoming stricter on this.

Darragh11

Thank you for all that info!