Still no second level school for boys 15 months on

A RANGE of issues have contributed to the fact that 16 young boys are without a second level school up to 15 months after finishing sixth class.

But many of the same problems are being experienced by families and schools across the country.

For all that has been said on this issue in recent months, Limerick is just like any other city in its mix of demographic groupings, with many socially deprived areas, sprawling suburbs built between the 1960s and 1980s.

In other ways, Limerick is unique, without the north-south social divide often alluded to in Dublin and Cork, meaning that children can travel with ease from one part of the city to another to get to school.

Distinctions and divides have also been made based on feuds between criminal families, which have brought unwanted attention to the city in recent years.

Unfortunately, things like this can also have an impact on the decisions parents make about which school they will apply to for their son or daughter.

Some people play this factor down but it may have had some bearing on the crisis.

“There’s no doubt that some families are reluctant to send a child from parts of the city to schools in an area where opposing sides of the feuds live,” said one education source in Limerick.

The statistic most often quoted is that 1,000 children do not transfer from primary to secondary school every year but, with powers to find and help children who have fallen between the cracks, the National Educational Welfare Board (NEWB) should be in a position to paint a more accurate picture of the situation for the first time later this year.

“The majority of those without school places would have been forgotten about in the past, but we’re there now to help fight for their rights,” said NEWB Munster regional manager Dan O’Shea.

The board has been serving the country’s cities and 12 large towns for the past year and its Education Welfare Officers (EWOs) have worked hard for more than six months to find places for at least 50 of Limerick’s 850 pupils who finished sixth class last June. They have helped families appeal enrolment refusals or submit applications to alternative schools in an effort to accommodate the children.

For the 16 children still without a school place, the NEWB has offered to arrange home tuition for 10 hours a week until such time as suitable places are found for them.