Educate Together in secondary school move

PARENTS have been invited to a public meeting in Cork next week to discuss setting up one of the first second-level Educate Together schools in the country.

It follows the decision by the Government earlier this year to give the multi-denominational schools group the right to establish and run second-level schools.

Until this year, parents had a choice of sending their children to a second-level school run by Catholic religious orders, or to a community, vocational or comprehensive school.

Educate Together, which controls 58 primary schools of which 27 are in the Dublin area, has seen huge growth in recent years.

But it was unable to respond to the huge demand among parents for multi-denominational education at second level.

However, that changed when Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn decided to allow it to run second-level schools.

Now, parents in Cork are making plans to establish a second-level Educate Together school in the east of the county.

The school will probably not open until 2017 but an announcement on who will be the patron will be decided much sooner.

Organisers have encouraged the parents of children attending the four Educate Together primary schools in Cork — in Carrigaline, Gaelscoil an Ghoirt Álainn in Mayfield, Midleton and Cork Educate Together on Grattan Street — to get involved.

The meeting is due to take place in Carrigtwohill Community Centre at 8pm next Tuesday.

A ‘start-up group’ to drive the project forward will be set up and a range of committee positions, including chairman, demographics and research, fundraising and IT, need to the filled.

Last year, the Department of Education awarded the patronage of a new second-level school in Gorey to Wexford VEC after a poll among parents. More than 950 voted for the Educate Together option.

The move was seen as a reversal for Educate Together, but its campaign for second-level recognition gained momentum since the change of government, as Labour supports the move.

Last year, a TCD study found 90% of parents with children in Educate Together schools would send their children to second-level schools run by the multi-denominational group.

Its campaign for second-level recognition has been backed by several leading education figures including Prof Áine Hyland, former professor of education at UCC; Prof Sheelagh Drudy, chair of education, UCD; Rose Tully, and the National Parents Council (post-primary). Board members of Educate Together include former education minister Mary O’Rourke and former DCU president Ferdinand von Prondzynski.