County's Catholic second level schools may be centred in Enniskillen under new review

Sarah Saunderson • Published 4 Mar 2010 14:16 0 Comments

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The forthcoming proposals for the future provision of Catholic education in the Fermanagh area will largely propose that post-primary education should be centred in Enniskillen, a local MLA believes.

Belleek MLA Mr. Tommy Gallagher has seen a leaked document in advance of the publication of area proposals by the Northern Ireland Commission for Catholic Education's Post-Primary Review.

On Monday, Cardinal Sean Brady launched the Commission's consultation on the future of post-primary education. All the options and proposals for the future provision in Fermanagh will be made available in the week beginning March 22.

"The only thing we have seen was a leaked document back a couple of months ago which was proposing largely that post-primary education be centred in Enniskillen," Mr. Gallagher said.

"It looked like the sites were existing post-primary sites in Enniskillen. The difficulty is that using the numbers that they published in the same document, they did not have the capability in Enniskillen to accommodate all the children that they anticipated being enrolled at post-primary level".

"The first problem that immediately springs to mind is on the controlled side where the Duke of Westminster was persuaded to close down with the promise of a new Devenish College. That seems to be as far away as ever now. I do not foresee the communities who have an interest in post-primary education on the Catholic side falling for that kind of thing again," he said.

"If post-primary education is centred in Enniskillen, that is going to run into a host of difficulties, not least the general traffic chaos in Enniskillen and in the case of Brollagh, for example, the Department's policy that no post-primary child should undertake a journey in excess of 45 minutes to get to school," he said.

Schools that will come under scrutiny in the post-primary review in Fermanagh include Mount Lourdes, St. Aiden's High School, Derrylin; St. Comhghall's, Lisnaskea; St. Eugene's, Rosslea; St. Fanchea's, Enniskille; St. Joseph's, Enniskillen; St, Mary's High School, Brollagh; St. Mary's College, Irvinestown and St. Michael's College.

The review has attracted headlines as it will effectively remove academic selection from Catholic post-primary education.

In 2007, the Commission published a pre-consultation document about education in the Clogher/Kilmore dioceses.

It laid out a number of options including:

*Two 11-14 non-selective colleges in Lisnaskea and Enniskillen and at 14, all pupils transfer to a 14-19 college at the St. Michael's and Mount Lourdes sites.

*Schools in Derrylin, Brollagh, Enniskillen and Lisnaskea for pupils aged 4-14 feeding into a 14-19 school of 1,100 at St. Michael's and Mount Lourdes,

*Two 11-16 non-selective colleges in Lisnaskea and Enniskillen leading into a single sixth form college or joint delivery at St. Michael's and Mount Lourdes sites.

*An 11-19 college in Lisnaskea for 800 pupils and an 11-19 college in Enniskillen for 1,500 pupils.

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 04 Mar 10

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