Lack of school places ‘due to lack of planning’

A PARENTS’ group has blamed the Department of Education for the shortage of primary school places that has resulted in one boy having to stay at home.

Fionnuala Kilfeather, chief executive of the National Parents’ Council (Primary), said the department should have planned for schools in areas of rapid population growth.

The Irish National Teacher’s Organisation (INTO) said the Department of Education’s planning process was well behind demographic trends, particularly around Dublin.

“It takes four years before a child is ready for school, three years to train a teacher and about six months to build a classroom. The demand for schools is not something that develops overnight,” an INTO spokesperson said yesterday.

Meanwhile, seven-year-old Andrew Lohmann remained at home with his mother, Sarah Lohmann, in Donabate, Co Dublin.

Ms Lohmann, a secondary school teacher, does not have a car and says her son is too young to travel to another school outside the community.

“I don’t think anything could have prepared me for how upset I felt when all of a sudden Andrew did not have a place,” she said yesterday.

There are two local schools in Donabate and Ms Lohmann would have been happy for her son to go to either of them. But St Patrick’s Boys National School is full and Educate Together Donabate, based in a rented ballroom until Christmas, has 15 children ahead of Andrew on their waiting list.

There is a place for Andrew in a school in Swords, which is a bus ride away, but there is a chance that a special appeal may result in Andrew gaining a place at the Educate Together school.

Ms Lohmann, who is currently teaching Andrew at home, said she would consider sending him to the school in Swords if the appeal failed but, with two older children that would create logistical problems in getting them to separate schools.

Ms Kilfeather said there were pockets of growth throughout the country where schools were now overcrowded because the department had failed to plan ahead.

“There must be provision for new schools at the planning stage of any new housing scheme, otherwise we will have more problems with children being unable to go to school in their community,” she warned.

“Our primary education system is unique in the world. Sites must be found for privately-owned schools before the State funds them. This situation makes absolutely no sense whatever.”