This article is from page 28 of the 2014-05-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 28 JPG
THE Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Kieran O’Reilly, has appealed to the Mi nister for Education to show more “flexibility” when it comes to the issue of small r ural primar y schools.
Dr O’Reilly said concer n over the future of small schools is an issue throughout his diocese.
Addressi ng an audience, that included Minister Ruai ri Quinn, at the opening of t he new Ennis Na – tional School on Friday, Dr O’Reilly urged t he Gover nment to be more sympat hetic to the concer ns of r ural schools.
“I have t he ver y happy task of perfor ming confirmation ceremonies around t he count r y. One of the things that has come to my attention ver y forcefully, and I said I was goi ng to bend the Minister’s ear when he was here. I wasn’t sure if I would do it public but I’m going to do it publicly,” said Dr O’Reilly.
He continued, “It’s the issue of the numbers in small schools. I know you are ver y much aware of it. My only appeal to you and to your depar tment officials would be to see if there is any level of flexibility, even in a small two or three numbers that could be applied. People have spoken here about beauti ful schools, classrooms with whiteboards that are now going to lose a teacher because of maybe one or two students. I know you are const rained and we read it all the time i n the media. But I think having heard it in our diocese, which goes from West Clare up to Offally and into a small bit of Laois, it is a ver y impor tant thing on t he ground and I’m sure your local representatives have said it to you.”
Speaking afterwards, Minister Quinn said he would be meeting with t he Irish National Teacher’s Organisation (INTO) to discuss the issue.
He said, “There are personnel issues, there are capacity issues and there are fal ling numbers in some par ts. But we are tr yi ng to get a sensible solution to it. When you use the pupil teacher ratio as the only measure, which is what I’ve inher ited and is t he only instr ument I have, you can’t have t he flexibility you requi re at a time when some schools are losing population and some are growing.”
Minister Quinn continued, “I’m quite prepared [to be flexible] i n isolated r ural areas where t he schools is essential for the health of the act ual community itself. That is quite different to a place where there is t hree schools in two kilomet res of each ot her. And yet they are both being treated the exact same.”