Dear Madam, - I am writing in support of the abandonment of the proposal to bring about the amalgamation of the Collegiate Grammar School and Portora Royal School. Educating girls is the single most important step towards a better world, and the Collegiate does this so well.

The arguments in support of grammar and single-sex schools are well documented, so although fully behind them, I will not spend the rest of this letter restating them. Rather, I am offering a personal plea to save a school so important to so many. It is not broken- it is far from broken- so there is no need to try to fix it. The proposed amendments will ruin rather than repair.

I left the Collegiate two years ago, and am now even more convinced of its worth. I am not alone in this, with every Collegian past and present, and every one of their families with whom I have come into contact, also being strongly against the closure of this school. The Collegiate is a special school. The fact that its girls are passionate about keeping it open is validation enough. They have been willing to campaign, to write, to protest, things which most youth tend to shy away from. It is not that these are especially political girls. It’s just that they know the privilege of being a Collegian, and they want to preserve that privilege for themselves and for future generations.

I have just finished my second year at one of the best universities in the world and I love every day I spend there. I’m better for it. Sometimes I genuinely feel overwhelmed with gratitude to the school that got me there. My school was a warm environment, filled with teachers and friends alike that really knew me, and that really cared. The level of care and attention that my friends and I received whilst at the Collegiate is something that we have only come to truly realise and appreciate in hindsight, having attended the somewhat more impersonal institution that is university.

Before Year 8 even began, the principal knew us by name. We were treated as individuals, and we were each made to feel valued. Each individual university application was pored over and given hours of attention by both the Careers department and the principal. Teachers were intent upon finding the best possible destination for each of their girls. I left the Collegiate as an individual sure of her own self-worth, an assurance that has impacted every decision that I have made since. I struggle to believe that there is a principal anywhere in the country who is more diligent, dedicated, caring and supportive than Elizabeth Armstrong. The same can be said of the (now retired) VP Mrs. Dunn, whose students adored her. They deserve to be listened to. Even after having left, I genuinely feel like I have a home there. Once a Collegian, always a Collegian. Such a bond is rare, and the mark that it leaves upon a young life is indelible. It shouldn’t be touched.

There are plenty of well-publicised problems with Northern Ireland that need fixing. Our education system is not one of them. My time at university is spent with many who have paid well in excess of £10,000 for every year of their secondary education, yet I do not feel inferior. I went to a school filled with great, inspiring teachers, and with smart, kind, ambitious, lovely, driven girls. Consequently, I have received an education on which I could not put a value, yet I got it all for free.

As a province, we often fail to propel a positive image to the rest of the world. It is often an image of politics in chaos, of political failures. But with regard to education, politics is working. As it stands, our education system is one to be proud of. I certainly am proud of it.

Yet it’s not only about saving a fantastic school, or even about saving grammar schools in general. Over 7,000 people have signed the petition, and for a county (and country) whose population often opts for political passivity, assuming it to be little more than a competition between ‘the sides’ rather than an actual forum for national improvement, this is no small feat.

Mr. O’Dowd is one man, and while his knowledge of politics and therefore, supposedly, of what is best for Northern Ireland, may be better than that of the average Fermanagh citizen, he is arrogant to assume that he knows better than those who really care and who will live with the consequences. Worse, he is wrong to assume so. It is for the people that politics exists. By failing to listen, he is failing us, and failing to do his job. Worse still, by failing to listen, he is proving to us that democracy, the system advocated by the world’s greatest political minds and fought for by generations of people, does not work.

If Mr. O’Dowd is intent upon doing his job even nearly as well as Elizabeth Armstrong carries out hers, he will listen to the people he claims to represent and this proposal will be dropped.

Yours faithfully, Rose Saunders