Disastrous decision must be stopped at all costs

Unlikely accomplices and a great deal of wishful thinking later, the Collegiate, a highly successful and oversubscribed school, and Portora Royal, one of the only five Royal schools in Ireland, will be closed. I feel very sorry for the young men of Portora Royal School, their teachers and parents, and the generations of young men who have been denied the opportunity of an education in a landmark institution. All of the young people impacted by this decision deserved so much better. A process saturated with political dogma and individual agenda has consigned the Collegiate and Portora to the dustbin of history.

I am dismayed by the Western Education and Library Board, the Fermanagh Protestant Board of Education and the Devenish College Board of Governors. In particular, the blatant involvement of Devenish College in a development proposal which did not involve them or impede them is incredibly disturbing. I am still baffled that the Devenish Governors sent out a letter to every parent at the last hour of the public consultation imploring them to lend their support to the closure of the Collegiate and Portora. Recipients were even provided with an addressed envelope and a stamp! I am even more perplexed by the Fermanagh Protestant Board of Education who have yet to answer the questions asked of them.

Alarmingly, John O’Dowd ignored the resounding call of the majority who were against the school closures. The Education Minister disregarded the Collegiate pupils, staff, Governors, the community in general in Fermanagh and notably the settled view of the Northern Ireland Assembly which voted in favour of a motion brought forward by Arlene Foster rejecting the proposals.

Is any school safe? Sinn Fein have made no secret of the fact that they deem grammar education as elitist and following last Friday’s announcement they have made inroads towards diminishing grammar education and ultimately having it abolished in Northern Ireland. The impact of the Minister’s decision in Fermanagh will be catastrophic. Firstly, the Collegiate and Portora will close, of that we can be certain. 400 years of Portora Royal School, destroyed. 100 years of the Collegiate Grammar School, destroyed. Closure means closure.

Secondly, young people will be subject to an education on split sites for many years to come. With no guidance available from either the WELB when they conducted the consultation process or the Department of Education on a new build start, the educational wasteland of split sites is guaranteed to be well over five and probably nearer to ten years at least. As the budgetary and financial landscape continually changes, the stakeholders in favour of this closure will have a large helping of egg on their faces when the funding promised is no longer available and the controlled post primary sector is hauled onto the one out-of-town site. What do they say to the parents and young people of the controlled sector then? “Sorry, we were misled”?

Thirdly, the educational choices available to children, parents and families will be significantly reduced. There will be less grammar school places available to Fermanagh’s primary school children and shared education opportunities will undoubtedly be diminished.

The minority supporting the closure of the Collegiate and Portora, the WELB and the Education Minister have been fixated with the result from the very beginning of this process, but what about the effect? The Education Minister said the school closures “put the needs of the pupils first” which would be the reason why his decision came the day before P7 pupils sat their final entrance examinations. Draw your own conclusion.

John O’Dowd has sought to detach individual institutions from his decision making and in doing so, he has separated the institution from the pupil. I feel so privileged to have received such a sterling education in my red and green uniform. It is indeed a part of who I am. It is a part of my identity and the identity of four generations of young women. The Collegiate is an institution standing up for everyone and everything it represents. I am more proud of it today than I have ever been before. The Latin words of the Collegiate school motto, ‘dilgenter recte fideleter’ translate to diligently, justly and faithfully. If our decision makers employed the same three words to their work, perhaps we wouldn’t have found ourselves in the dismal situation we are in now.

The sinister undertones in this entire process will become apparent in the not so distant future but by then it will be too late. This disastrous decision must be stopped now at all costs. Yours faithfully, Former Head Girl of the Collegiate Grammar School