Smaller schools - Be flexible

One of life’s really valuable and sustaining things is being part of a community that shares needs, concerns, ambitions and responsibility for the welfare of its members.

This entirely human impulse manifests itself in many ways, especially in sparsely populated areas.

Rural communities seems to have taken more than their share of the cuts forced upon us in recent years, so the suggestion that small schools, those with less than four teachers, face an uncertain future will cause some alarm right across Ireland.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn may be contemplating a U-turn on an election promise about the amalgamation of smaller schools.

Such a proposal may make sense in some instances, but surely there must be room for some schools with fewer than four teachers?

Any rigid policy on numbers would not seem to make economic or social sense.