Incentives? Let’s start with a school, minister

IT WAS with a mixture of disbelief and disgust that I read Education Minister Noel Dempsey’s recent remarks that he was concerned about the drop-out rate from secondary schools, blaming this on financial pressures facing students from disadvantaged homes.

He went on to say this would only change if you “incentivise study for some people“.

This same man is doing nothing to try to save Greendale Community School in Kilbarrack, Dublin, which faces closure. Surely there can be no greater incentive to study for the young people of Kilbarrack and surrounding neighbourhoods than to keep their school open. Greendale Community School is the only school in the area that offers the Trinity Access Programme.

It also offers a host of facilities such as a school completion programme, Leaving Cert Applied and Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme, Special Education programme and Home/School/Community Liaison. There is also a flourishing night school in which upwards of 1,000 people enrol annually and a back-to-education programme for adults during the day.

Long after the doors have been locked and the lights turned off in neighbouring schools on the long winter evenings, the light burns brightly in Greendale CS as adults and students enjoy the benefits of night school and after-school activities respectively. Is this light to be extinguished? Is there anybody in the present Government with a social or moral conscience?

Miriam Heapes

34 Foxfield Road

Raheny

Dublin 5