First day at all-boys’ school

SHE might be the only girl at the previously all-boys’ Nagle Community College, but Meagan Kavanagh was with her friends when she started her second-level education yesterday.

The 11-year-old was the subject of huge public discussion earlier this month when the Department of Education ruled that the school should admit her into first year, as its enrolment policy had not explicitly stated it was an all-boys’ school.

The decision followed an appeal by her mother against the refusal by the school in the Cork suburb of Mahon and City of Cork Vocational Education Committee (VEC) to enrol her last spring.

But Meagan was unfazed by the whole thing yesterday morning as she donned her new uniform for the first time and looked forward to being with her friends, many of whom she was in primary school with at the local Gaelscoil.

She is also looking forward to studying art, but also to taking up metalwork and woodwork, subjects that might not have been available to her at an all-girls’ school.

Meagan’s mother Gillian Lynch and father John Kavanagh were on hand to see her begin her first day at the school yesterday morning.

While the decision by the Department of Education raised a lot of questions about single-sex second level education in Ireland, which has one of the highest proportions of boys-only and girls-only schools in Europe, it will not open the floodgates for them to become co-educational.

However, City of Cork VEC is to begin discussions with local schools, parents, and other interested parties to consider whether Nagle Community College should be opened to enrolments for other girls from next year.

While it has been reported that a number of girls from the Mahon area expressed interest in joining the school, the VEC has said that no formal applications for enrolment were received.

The school’s enrolment policy was amended in recent weeks, on orders of the Department of Education when it issued the appeal decision, to reflect its all-boys status.

It was opened in 1981 and had not previously admitted girls to first year, although it has had female students on further education and other courses on the premises.