An Alarming Concern over Rural School Closures In Ireland

Dublin – On Wednesday 27^th June Irish Minister for Education Joe McHugh hosted a symposium with education stakeholders on initiatives to strengthen small schools which he said were often the “heartbeat and lifeblood of a community”.

 Mr McHugh said the Government was committed to supporting and strengthening small schools to move from “surviving to thriving”.

“Small schools can and do provide an excellent education to our children, right in the heart of their communities,” he said.

“I went to a small school as a child. I live in an area where small schools are a facet of life and that is replicated up and down the country. They are often the heartbeat and lifeblood of a community.”

The latest Department of Education statistics in Ireland show there were 3,300 primary schools in the 2012-13 school year compared with 3,246 in the 2017-18 school year which indicates decrease of 54.

According to latest figure, lots of primary schools have either closed or had to merge over the past five years amid concern for the future sustainability of small schools in rural areas

More than half of the State’s primary schools are defined as small with four teachers or fewer. However, they account for just 15 per cent of the primary school population. Most are based in rural parts of counties on the western seaboard.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organization (INTO) says pre-recession figures for appointing teachers should be applied. Currently, a school can appoint a second teacher when it has an enrolment of 18 pupils and a third teacher when it reaches an enrolment of 54 pupils and a fourth teacher when it has 84 pupils.

Prior to the recession, these rules were generous and allowed a third teacher to be appointed with an enrolment of 48 pupils and a fourth teacher with 78 pupils. The union says some teaching principals find themselves increasingly professionally isolated as a school’s pupil number drops below the threshold for retaining other teachers.

Mr McHugh said the Government had helped to ease pressure on small schools through moves on pupil-teacher ratios in recent years, and the allocation of a second adult in schools with a single teacher.