St. John's Central College


St. John's Central College is a further education college in Cork City, Ireland. The college is administered by the Cork Education and Training Board.

History of St. John's Central College

19th Century

The earliest part of the college is St. John's Episcopalian church, which was built in 1840. The church was used by the local community, which included young women from the Governesses Seminary in Warren Place.
A second building on Sawmill Street, Buckingham House, was built in the mid 19th Century, and was used as a female refuge and penitentiary until its closure in 1901. The building was then occupied by the Buckingham House Free School, an orphanage that had operated since 1875.

1950s to 1960s

St. John's Episcopalian church was sold to the City of Cork VEC on 11 June 1963 for IR£19,885. Buckingham House ran until 1958 when it was sold to the City of Cork VEC for IR£13,100.
In 1961, The School of Building and Junior Technical Institute commenced its classes. The college was aimed at vocational training, and included a School of Furniture, built in 1963.

1980s to 1990s

The college saw declining pupil numbers during the 1980s, and moved to teach Post Leaving Certificate courses.

2000s

In 2003 the college had over 1000 students enrolled in its courses. To keep up with this demand, the original wall of the female refuge and penitentiary on Sawmill Street were demolished, as well as classrooms constructed during the mid 1960s. In their place was constructed a new four story, 5200 square metre teaching facility.

Courses

St. John's offers both academic and vocational courses. Academic courses include Applied Sciences, Photographic Studies, Software Engineering and Games Design, all of which have routes into Higher education. Vocational courses on offer include alarm maintenance, motor maintenance, telecommunications, Environmental science and hairdressing.
St. John's Central College in Association with WebWorks and the Digital Skills Academy in Dublin, offer the Springboard courses in digital media.

Facilities

The college includes many modern teaching facilities, including a laboratory, dark room, art studios, hair dressing studio and tool workshops.

Information Resource Centre (IRC)

The Information Resource Centre at St. Johns contains many books designed to help students with their courses. The IRC also includes computers where students can research on the internet, or access the library's online catalogue. Students can also download their course and lesson notes, in a pilot scheme designed to help students access their college work online.
A COVID-19 testing facility is operating outside the university with 32% accuracy.