No plans in place to address future demand for local school places
PRINCIPALS FEAR CRISIS IS LOOMING IF PLANS AREN’T IN PLACE IN TIME
Parents in Gorey are up in arms as a shortage of second level school places looks increasingly imminent.
However despite the impending crisis there are no plans in place to meet the future demand for secondary school places.
Last week Cllr Malcolm Byrne got a party colleague, Deputy Thomas Byrne, to get answers from Minister for Education Joe McHugh about the need for additional school places in Gorey.
Earlier this month Elaine Clarke, a concerned parent raised the need for an additional secondary school in North Wexford to meet growing the population demand especially in light of proposed housing developments in the area.
In his response to the parliamentary question from Deputy Byrne Minister McHugh said there are no new secondary schools in the pipeline for Gorey. However he said that ‘it is open to an individual school to apply for accommodation under the additional accommodation scheme if the school does not have sufficient capacity to meet school places’.
Paul Glynn, principal of Creagh College, said the demand for places should be adequate for the coming school year and for about three years after that. However he said it is important to flag the future demographic of Gorey with the Department of Education at this stage because Gorey’s population is only set to increase over the coming years, especially given the amount of housing developments planned for the area coupled with the fact that Gorey acts a commuter town for Dublin. Mr Glynn said as far as he is aware the Department only look at the current demographic when assessing the need for a school rather than taking future growth into account.
‘Creagh does have the possibility to extend and allow for an additional 200 places,’ said Mr Glynn. ‘If we see a difficulty with places looming, we will flag it with the Department to begin the process with the extension.’
By next year, Creagh College will have a total of 800 students, but they have capacity for 1,000 pupils. Mr Glynn said the current building will allow for further controlled expansion of the school in the coming years.
Mr Glynn added that following unprecedented demand for place for this coming September, the board of management agreed to increase the number of first year places from 132 to 192 for the 2019/2020 school year. He said that Creagh College uses a lottery system to determine successful applicants when oversubscribed, with initial preference given to siblings of current students and children of staff members.
‘Creagh College does not prioritise students based on the proximity of their primary school and does not given preference to students from any primary school,’ he added.
Principal of Gorey Community School, Michael Finn, said there will be a problem with school places in the long term as a result of the numerous houses being developed and the increasing number of families moving to Gorey.
‘If we are going to address this we need to do it in the next two years as opposed to waiting for the crisis,’ said Mr Finn. ‘Certainly in recent years it has become more challenging for parents and children.’
Mr Finn added that they have 120 on the waiting list but said that hopefully after the entrance exam next week, which is being held the same day as Creagh College, this will be reduced as some students have enrolled at both schools.
Cllr Malcolm Byrne said his fear is that the Department of Education is not preparing for the expected population growth of North Wexford or looking at primary school data.
‘It is unacceptable that we could be facing a situation in a few years where there is either overcrowding in locals schools or worse, local students being unable to be guaranteed a school place. We will need to start campaigning again.’
When asked if he would make a statement regarding capacity at both Creagh College and Gorey Community School Minister McHugh said major new residential developments in a school planning area have the potential to alter demand in that area.
‘In that regard, as part of the demographic exercises, the Department engages with each of the local authorities to obtain the up-to-date data on significant new residential developments in each area. This is necessary to ensure that schools infrastructure planning is keeping pace with demographic changes as there is a constantly evolving picture with planned new residential development, including additional residential developments arising from the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund.’
He said while there are no plans to build a new secondary school in the North Wexford area the requirement for new schools will be kept under on-going review and in particular will have regard for the increased rollout of housing provision as outlined in Project Ireland2040.
‘It is open to an individual school to apply for accommodation under the additional accommodation scheme if the school does not have sufficient capacity to meet school places,’ added Minister McHugh.
In respect of Creagh College he said: ‘a 1,000 pupil post primary school was established in 2011 in the area referred to and moved into its permanent accommodation in 2014 and the school has capacity to meet demand in the area.’