Progressive school accused of city ‘brain drain’

A COUNTY Limerick secondary school, which almost closed seven years ago due to falling numbers, is now being accused of creaming off the county’s brightest and best.

Record numbers are enrolling at Coláiste Chiaráin in Croom and more than 40% of its students travel 12 miles from Limerick city.

Principals at city secondary schools are concerned at the brain drain to the county school and have written to the Department of Education and the County Vocational Education Committee, which runs Coláiste Chiaráin.

Students wanting to get places in the 15 secondary schools in the city are allocated places by a Central Applications System run by the city education centre.

But an increasing number of parents from the city are sending their sons and daughters to the school.

The city schools now want Coláiste Chiaráin brought into their placement system.

Coláiste Chiaráin principal Noel Malone dismissed claims by city schools that he is poaching from the city’s catchment area.

Mr Malone said yesterday: “There seems to be unease among some city secondary schools at our success and that we are attracting a lot of quality students from the city. We had an open night in a city hotel recently for parents and more than 500 turned up.”

Mr Malone said the school has held onto “old fashioned” standards with regards to discipline.

He said: “We are very strong in terms of students’ respect for each other and on anti-bulling policy.”

Coláiste Chiaráin was the first secondary school in the country to abolish text books and replace them with laptops, with backing from Dell.

Each student now has a lap top and parents buy the computers at a subsidised rate.

Michael Dell visited the school in September 2004 and described it as one of the finest in the world.

Coláiste Chiaráin has 585 boys and girls on its books, of which about 250 travel each day from the city.

Plans are afoot to build a new school in Croom on a greenfield site which will accommodate more than 800 students.