Major investment for North Down and Ards Institute
The North Down and Ards Institute of Further and Higher Education will benefit from a £9.7 million investment package announced today.
Unveiling details of the new investment package, Angela Smith, Minister for Employment and Learning said: “The investment package will provide modern teaching facilities in Engineering and Creative Technologies at the Bangor Campus and a Construction Craft Centre at Ards.
"The new facilities will enable the Institute to provide technology transfer support to the Small and Medium sized Enterprise sector, a pre-incubation infrastructure to support business start-up and a performance arena for music and multi-media training and consultancy. There will also be provision for professional and technical training in the construction craft occupations.”
The Minister said that construction of the new facilities has been scheduled to commence in February 2006. She added that the projected work once completed would contribute to the combined resource and technical expertise available to the new, recently announced, area-based college comprising East Down, Lisburn and North Down and Ards Institutes. East Down and Lisburn are also well advanced with plans to procure new colleges across all their campuses.
Highlighting the importance of the Further Education sector to the economy, Angela Smith said: “We need a far more rigorous re-direction of public spending on innovation rather than protection, in skills and education, rather than subsidising economic inactivity and in infrastructure rather than public sector bureaucracy. The £9.7 million funding committed today provides further confirmation of Government’s commitment to the sector and the young people and adults using its facilities.”
In conclusion the Minister said she looked forward to the construction of the new facilities which it is hoped will be available at May 2008.
Notes to Editors:
1. The origins of North Down and Ards Institute reach back to 1904 when the first Technical Instruction School in the area was opened in West Street, Newtownards. This was followed by a second Technical Instruction School in Bangor in 1910, situated on the site of the present Carnegie Library. In 1967 these two Technical Schools were amalgamated to form North Down and Ards College.
2. Since the amalgamation, provision has grown significantly to meet the needs of an increasing and diverse student population. In 1994 the College became North Down and Ards Institute of Further and Higher Education following formal recognition by the Department of Education for Northern Ireland of its status as a major provider of higher education in the Province.
3. In September last the Minister announced, following a review of size and structure as part of an overall Further Education Review, that North Down and Ards, East Down (at Downpatrick, Ballynahinch and Newcastle) and Lisburn would come together as one of six new area based colleges in Northern Ireland.
4. Media enquiries to the Department for Employment and Learning Press Office on 028 9025 7790.