Will latest education report be translated into action?

Editorial Department • Published 16 Feb 2012 13:00 0 Comments

See also:

When the ground breaking report from the Northern Ireland Council for Catholic Education on the post-primary review was published this week, there must have been anxious moments for Boards of Governors, principals, teaching staff, pupils, parents and above all, communities fighting to save their own educational institutions.

On the face of it, the report which recommends reducing the nine Catholic post primary schools in the county to as few as three with just two large schools in Enniskillen is radical.

It will send shock waves through many local communities especially around Brollagh where unless there is some innovative response forthcoming, St. Mary's High School looks doomed and in south-east Fermanagh where three schools are being recommended to merge into one .

The acts of defiance have already started with the new Community Action Group in Derrylin backed by around 500 parents and friends of St. Aidan's High School quickly establishing a major campaign which they hope will unite every similar school across Northern Ireland into a spirited display of community opposition.

One worry for some people if this grand plan is adopted, is transporting thousands of children into Enniskillen for six years of their education when some highly successful schools which contribute greatly to their local economies close their doors.

It is also difficult to look at these recommendations without wondering what is happening in the controlled sector which also needs a radical overhaul too.

The Department of Education is in receipt of a submission by the Western Education and Library Board outlining how they see the future for controlled post primary schools in the county. Is there scope for collaboration between the two sectors?

For too long reports and reviews have been carried out and despite strongly worded recommendations, they appear to sit on shelves while schools struggle through inadequate provision, reducing school budgets, tensions with pupils over choices of subjects and of course the whole area of performance targets.

Many of these reports have been carried out when some of our sons and daughters were contemplating leaving primary school and we foolishly thought they might have been attending some of these new institutions. Decades later, the talking still goes on without much action and we wonder will this latest document make much headway either?

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 16 Feb 12

Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our Opinion archives.