PLC courses - or Post Leaving Cert courses to give them their full title - are a relatively new part of Irish further education. They are very practical courses providing job and career related training and education in a very wide range of areas. These courses now provide 18,500 further education places each year for Leaving Cert students, and represent a very sizable proportion of the college places available to school leavers.

Some 30,000 students get places each year in the university/RTC sector through the CAO application system; and the numbers now opting for PLC courses is almost two thirds of that. PLCs have obviously enormously increased the range of options available to school leavers. It would be dangerous indeed for a Leaving Cert student to ignore this sector as it provides a route into a wide variety of interesting careers.

PLC courses evolved mainly in VEC colleges, and some of these colleges, such as the College of Commerce in Cork or the Cavan College of Further Education have effectively become full time PLC colleges. In Dublin, PLC colleges such Ballyfermot Senior College or Colaiste Dhulaigh have come to be just as popular as traditional third level colleges for many students. In some areas such as Dun Laoghaire, three PLC campuses have grouped together as the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Further Education.

PLC courses exist in a wide variety of areas and in some instances they provide training which is not available at all in the CAO sector. There are PLC courses in leisure and sport, media and communications, horticulture, equestrian studies, computing, business and accounting, health care, drama and theatre, catering and tourism, art & design, marketing and languages, security studies and many, many more.

Originally PLC courses were one year courses designed to train students in the practical skills of a particular career; many have since grown to two and some even to three years duration. Some of these courses are of a similar standard and duration to diploma courses in the RTC/DIT sector, but unfortunately PLC colleges are not designated as third level by the Department of Education.

This does not interfere with the attractiveness or standards of the PLC courses, nor does it seem to bother employers who find the practical nature of the training they provide very attractive - and the job placement rate is very good. But it does lead to confusion in the mind of students and to an administrative muddle.

In Britain and in Northern Ireland two strands of education beyond second level are recognised: the universities are designated as higher education and colleges providing courses and qualifications such as the PLC colleges here are designated as further education. They are both third level, but two different types of third level.

Here, despite the fact that quite a few PLC colleges refer to themselves as "further education" colleges or institutes, the Department of Education has not yet recognised a separate "further" education sector.

But the biggest problem arising from the failure to designate PLC courses formally as further education and training is that there are no maintenance grants available to students studying on these courses. No fees are charged, but, of course, the cost of maintaining oneself for a year at college can be prohibitive for some students.

Students on PLC courses are undergoing vocational training and as such they are technically much better qualified for ESF funding that many of the students in RTC/DIT courses who do receive ESF funding.

It is a tribute to the excellence of the PLCs and to the value of their qualifications that so many students do opt for these courses despite the lack of maintenance support. But inevitably it means that it is mainly middle class students who can avail of these opportunities.