Dublin School Receives No Irish Born Applicants

Enrolments at a Dublin School have encapsulated the changes in population ongoing in Ireland today as it receives no applications from Irish born pupils.

At present, half of the pupils at the north inner city school are minority ethnic and language students, and figures from eight local schools in the Dublin 7 area are reported to show there are 1,839 pupils enrolled this year, nearly half of which are from minority backgrounds.

In one of the schools, 63% of pupils are from an ethnic minority. Another school with only 292 pupils has 26 minority languages students, while a third with 378 pupils has 25 languages spoken, according to a report launched on Tuesday.

In the report, Dublin 7 is identified as an area of educational disadvantage. The report took account of literacy, early school leaving, access to education, academic under-achievement and underdevelopment of interpersonal and social skills.

A School Cultural Mediation was subsequently established to look at what needed to be done to accommodate the variety of languages and cultures in todays Dublin.

According to the evaluation report for a School Cultural Mediation Project: "For minority language students, these are more likely to become significant factors in their educational experience. They have the added disadvantage of potentially poor communication and connectivity between school and home. Such connectivity has been clearly established as a key factor in supporting children to achieve in the school,"

A pilot project was subsequently established to provide translation and interpretation services to minority language parents in ten schools in the North West Inner City during the past school year.

(DW/JM)