20 one-teacher schools to be asked to amalgamate

More than 20 primary schools will be asked to consider amalgamation or closure as part of a new procedure being finalised on the future of one-teacher schools.

The Department of Education says just over half the 44 one-teacher schools fall within the criteria under which their patron will be invited to initiate local consultation on future sustainability. This will take place in cases where a school is within 8km of another with the same type of patronage and the same language of instruction.

The protocol being worked on by the department, the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO), and school management bodies was described in an announcement of new small schools policy by Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan as voluntary. But her officials will be writing to the bishops in control of all such schools, or those whose pupil numbers fall under 25, to ask them to reflect on their future.