Protest at Dáil to demand new school building for NWETSS
STAFF and parents from North Wicklow Educate Together Secondary School will be demonstrating outside the Dáil tomorrow (Thursday, November 22).
The protest is being held to highlight their looming eviction from their temporary home on Putland Road, and what they say is ‘ the appalling lack of action’ by the Department of Education in processing the building of their new school.
‘ The Board of North Wicklow Educate Together Secondary School notes that, once again, members of the Kildare and Wicklow Education & Training Board felt that they did not have enough information to make a decision on the co-location of our school with Bray Institute of Further Education,’ said the school principal Jonathan Browner in a statement.
‘We have repeatedly asked all parties including BIFE, the KWETB and the Department of Education and Skills to work together to develop a shared vision for education in North Wicklow.’
He said that the Novara Road campus could easily accommodate their own school and all of BIFE’s ambitions for expansion and development.
‘We have been stonewalled,’ he said. ‘ The Department of Education has known that this issue was inevitable for the last two-and-a-half years so it should come as no surprise to them that a voluntary secondary school now finds itself in a property which is for sale and which is subject to vacant possession on May 1, 2019.
‘ The ongoing delay is affecting students, staff and parents in what is the school’s first exam year.’
They are calling on Minister for Education Joe McHugh to intervene immediately.