Longford County Council is committed to supporting every secondary school in Longford to introduce Computer Science as a leaving certificate subject, making Longford the first county in Ireland to do so. Under Longford County Council’s digital strategy, their objective in Longford is to have computer science a leaving cert subject in all nine of the county’s secondary schools. Longford currently has it in place in three of the schools, and work is being done to encourage and help the other schools to introduce the subject.

On the 17th of November, Longford County Council hosted a workshop for Longford secondary schools at CoWorx in Edgeworthstown. This brought together principals, vice principals and career guidance teachers from Longford and speakers and presenters from the tech sector and higher education. The event was opened by Danny Lynch, Head of Information Systems at Longford County Council and speakers included representatives from Ericsson, Microsoft DreamSpace, FIT, and Maynooth University. The Irish Computer Society presented on the growing demand for skilled, specialist IT professionals, especially in new and emergent technologies, and the importance of building a culture of IT professionalism at every level of education.