EDUCATE TOGETHER has expressed “deep disappointment” at a decision to award patronage of a new secondary school in Gorey to Wexford VEC.
Some 65 per cent of parents voted for the education authority in a consultation process.
Educate Together, the representative body for 58 primary schools across the State, said yesterday it would continue to campaign for Ireland’s first multi-denominational secondary school.
Its chief executive, Paul Rowe, said: “We are very concerned at this decision. Twenty out of the last 23 post-primary schools that the Department of Education has opened have been VEC schools, and the same has now happened in Gorey.”
Mr Rowe said the decision would do nothing to offer the parents of children in Gorey an additional choice of school as there were already three VEC community colleges available to them.
“We feel that is a serious setback for the 957 parents who expressed a preference for an Educate Together school.”
He said he would seek an immediate meeting with Minister for Education Mary Coughlan to discuss this matter and concerns about “ the transparency and independence of the process used for this decision”.
Chairwoman of the Gorey Educate Together second-level committee Angie Dooley said those who had campaigned for the new school were “totally devastated” .
“With seven VEC schools already available in Wexford, an Educate Together school would have provided real choice in Gorey.”
The school will open in September and will cater for more than 1,000 students. The patron will shortly appoint a board of management, which will include representatives of all primary school patrons in the town.