Saint Eunan’s College has a long and very successful relationship with Pramerica Ireland, a leading employer in the Northwest of Ireland with over 1700 employees working in this Fintech giant.

Earlier in the Summer, Pramerica refurbished the computer suites in Saint Eunans along with Abbey Vocational School in Donegal Town. These two schools are two of only 40 schools piloting the new Leaving Cert Computer Science course in Ireland. This investment in infrastructure and technology has helped these school reach more students and to provide an outstanding learning environment for exploration, coding and ‘making’ in the classroom.

In Saint Eunan’s we’ve also benefited greatly from the time and expertise that Pramerica makes available to us each year. We have regular guest speakers, career advisers and technological support from their employees who give so freely of their time. They are great ambassadors for their company and a priceless resource for our students.

Recently we finally got an opportunity to give a little back to Pramerica. Along with the Abbey VS, Saint Eunan’s sent five Computer Science students to the Pramerica Townhall, an end of year whole company event and showcase held in their new campus ‘The Rock’. Our students got an opportunity to address the entire company along with some of their US partners via teleconference. They spoke of the projects they are working on in school including the technology they incorporate such as machine learning, python programming and interactive hardware. They give the employees an overview of what the next generation of IT professionals will look like and how the bar was being raised by the teenagers who stood in front of them.

The theme of the event was innovation and the students from both schools changed how the Pramerica employees looked at the tools that will define their future coworkers. It was a fantastic event for everybody involved and it highlighted that these relationships between schools and industry don’t always have to be a one way street. As schools, we grow the next generation of employees and potential customers of these industry giants - and they need to hear what our students have to say.