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Minister for Education in Breach of Public Commitments
- 7th MAY 2003
The Minister for Education and Science, Noel Dempsey
has breached commitments made publicly to parents seeking new
schools for their children this September. This is seriously harming
the ability of parents to plan for their children’s education
and may harm the ability of the groups proposing such schools
to provide the necessary resources in time to open this year.
The delay in the announcement of the Minister’s
decisions on the recognition of new schools is another example
of the increasing restrictions being placed on the development
of schools that seek to address new demand in the Irish system.
In September 2002, the Dept. of Education &
Science announced revised application procedures for new primary
schools seeking recognition for September 2003. As part of this
procedure, a formal notification of intent to apply for recognition
had to be submitted to the DES by November 1st, with a formal
application for recognition to be submitted by January 31st, 2003.
In return, it was stated in the Circular entitled Recognition
of New Primary Schools – Application Procedure, issued by
the Planning Section of the DES, that the decision of the Minister
for Education & Science on the application for recognition
would be communicated to the Patron body and made public by April
30th, 2003.
As the Patron Body for the most number of applications
submitted this year, we have not as yet received any decision
from the Minister, and are unable to receive a revised date from
the Minister’s office.
Groups of voluntary parents have put much time and effort into
creating these schools. For the 6 new groups of volunteer parents
who wish to establish an Educate Together school in their area,
the above time-scales exerted immense pressure with the financial
costs of submitting such an application being incurred by individuals.
The working groups have been charged with the task
of:-
- Locating a temporary premises for the school,
which can accommodate a growing school for 7-10 years ( an enormous
task considering that a lease for longer than 4 years and 9
months bestows certain rights of tenure)
- The task of launching a Pre-enrolment list and
ensuring that as many people as possible are provided with choice
regarding the education of their children
- Fund-raising – a start-up school not only
has to fund the entire costs of start-up until the school opens,
it also has to cover a percentage of the rental costs, and often
has to cover a number of months rent e.g. June – September.
- Publicity – a new school has to gather support
from many sources, and therefore needs publicity from local
media.
The 6 groups who have committed to setting up an
Educate Together school and worked tirelessly to do so, have adhered
to the timescales as set down by the DES, and were reassured that
the Minister would also meet the timescale of April 30th. This
has not happened, and despite numerous efforts to receive a firm
timescale from the Minister’s office, we have not been able
to get any information. This delay is already seriously preventing
the new schools from moving on – they are unable to form
Acting Boards of Managements, unable to recruit a Principal, unable
to negotiate & sign a lease on prospective premises as agreed
and unable to either offer pupil places, or reassure parents that
the school is actually going ahead.
The proposed new Educate Together schools are in
the following areas:
Clonee/Ongar, Co. Fingal, Rush/Lusk, Co. Fingal, Newbridge, Co.Kildare,
Wicklow Town, Ballina, Co. Mayo, Limerick City East
Obviously the same difficulties apply to new schools
proposed by other providers.
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