Wed19 Oct 2022: Speaker Mr Malachy McAleer, Former Principal, S W College
The guest speaker at the meeting held on Wednesday 19 October was Mr Malachy McAleer who entitled his talk, “Life’s journey – lessons learned”. Although born in Glasgow his formative years were spent on the family farm near Trillick where his mother put great store by education and learning. The family home was full of books, and he got all the encouragement needed to progress from Primary School to Grammar School and on to the Queen’s University, Belfast where he took a degree in Civil Engineering. On graduating he joined the well-known company of Ferguson and McElveen before moving into education as a lecturer in the Sligo Institute of Technology. After 10 years in Sligo he joined the staff of “Omagh Tech” now part of the South West College. As Principal on the Omagh Campus he worked hard to create a partnership between the College and industry with the focus on employment and employability. As regards Further Education in Northern Ireland he sees it as work in progress, feeling that there is much that could learned from the institutes of Technology in the Republic of Ireland and in Germany.
