What Price Education?



Blue Dots are Schools identified as threatened under the rules
Photo: Impartial Reporter



A recent report highlighted in the Impartial Reporter identified that 81% of Fermanagh's secondary schools (13 out of 16) and 47% of our primary schools (25 of 44) have enrollments below that necessary to meet Departmental guidelines.

The Departmental guidelines stipulate that rural primary schools should have at least 105 pupils and secondary schools an enrolment of over 500 aged between 11 and 16. Such guidelines are clearly prejudicial to rural communities and seek to accelerate the erosion of education of rural children in schools located close to their home.

Nowhere in the North of Ireland will the impact of the potential closures be greater than in West Fermanagh. The area stretches a distance of almost 40 miles in length and has only one secondary school, Brollagh, located between Belleek and Garrison. This school will never meet the enrolment criteria set out by the Department but that doesn't stop it offering children the highest quality education.

With the Department's blessing, the Catholic Council for Maintained Schools initiated a 'review' of Brollagh's future about 5 years ago and in the face of a strong local campaign the move to close the school was postphoned. The campaigners remain focussed on defending their school and understand that the fight is not over and that the Department and its agencies will return to try once again to close their school.

What made the Brollagh case particularly outrageous was the fact that the local community had originally funded the building of the school themselves as the Department did not offer 100% funding to maintained schools (unlike those of the state sector) when it was built. As such, the community in the area feels a strong sense of ownership over the school and it is used outside school hours for a wide variety of social and sporting activities.

The Impact of 'Rationalisation' in Fermanagh

The Department's policies are likely to see all rural secondary schools outside Enniskillen close. Children from as far away as Belleek and Roslea will be forced to travel upwards to an hour to schools located in the county town. And as anyone who has ever visited Fermanagh knows, our county town has serious congestion problems.

The approach taken to apply minimum enrolments which are more appropriate to urban areas to rural ones will centralise schooling in Enniskillen thereby further aggravating the traffic congestion in the town. Children's well-being seems to be the last thing considered as they will be forced to travel long distances leaving homes early in the morning to go to schools which are arguably no better than those which were originally in rural areas.

The Impact on Rural Communities

As bad as the Department's rulings will be for children attending secondary schools, the impact of a closure of 47% of primary schools would devastate rural communities across the county.

The social fabric of local communities rests on the pillars of the local church, the football or soccer club, the school, local shops and the village pub. The loss of a village's primary school can be devastating as the social hub disappears for parents who interact after leaving their children in the morning and who chat when collecting them. When a primary school closes it is normal for playgroups and afterschools to follow suit as parents like to leave children off at one place.

There will be huge resistance to any moves to close village primary schools yet this is precisely what is threatening our communities. But it must be remembered that the rules stipulating minimum enrolment targets were set before the latest wave of cutbacks - how much more pressure will be exerted in this 'era of austerity'.

Young people across Fermanagh are finding the doors to third-level education being shut in their faces as they face a massive hike in fees and a concurrent increase in student loan interest rates. The County's higher educational institution, Fermanagh College, was subsumed as one campus of the Omagh-focussed Southwest College with a significant downgrading of the management jobs offered in Enniskillen and there has been a dramatic reduction in the provision of educational courses held in rural villages. In this context, the assault on rural primary and secondary education reflects just the latest failure of politicians in Stormont to understand the realities of rural life and to appreciate the growing anger among the communities in Fermanagh.

Absence of Planning - Survival of the Fittest

The Minister for Education, Caitriona Ruane, has become a byword for a political class which has lost the run of itself. They seek election every four years but are invisible for the remainder, that is absenting their propensity to be found at the front row of photo-opportunities in the local press at every governmental announcement.

There is no political leadership representing the interests of local communities. The absence of agreement in the Stormont Executive caused by the negotiated mutual-veto held by both the DUP and Sinn Féin has resulted in a situation where schools are left to fend for themselves and their students in the absence of clarity on the way forwards.

In this situation, schools located in populated and wealthy areas will be safe but those located in rural and poorer areas will find themselves facing the 'axe' of budget deficits. Politicians who are too astute to be associated with mass school closures choose a gradual and chaotic demise of rural education as school after school will close due to budgetary pressures and the decline in the numbers of families able to find sufficient employment to live in rural areas.

The excuse is that bigger schools will offer children more 'choice' of subjects offered - mirroring the false 'consumer' choice afforded by the market. But rural families do not want 'choice' they want decent education in the core subjects which is provided locally so that their children don't go to school already tired from long journeys. They want schools which are close to home and which retain some of the calm tranquility of rural life.

If parents in Fermanagh want to save rural education, it is time to act and get organised. As a start we need to link campaigns trying to save different schools to prevent the politicians from playing one against another or one sector against the other. Only when the right to and the value of rural education is recognised can we be confident of a future for rural communities.