SCHOOLS that have retained career guidance counsellors have seen more students successfully progress on to university, according to the Parent Power league tables, published in today’s Sunday Times.
In the 2012 budget, the government announced that the careers guidance allowance to second-level schools was to be cut.
However, the effect of retaining a counsellor in second-level schools can be seen in schools that have moved up the league table.
Laurel Hill Colaiste FCJ in Limerick, the top school in Ireland for the second year in a row, felt the role was too important to drop.
“The cut to the career guidance allowance was a massive disappointment in an area of increasing need and complexity,” said Aedín Ní Bhriain, the principal.
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“We couldn’t send our careers guidance teacher back into the classroom. The idea that a child in crisis could only meet that person at 5pm on a Friday just wasn’t good enough.
“We ring-fenced those hours as much as we could. I looked at our own curriculum and timetable and we robbed Peter to pay Paul. It’s crucial to have [the budget] reinstated. The teenage years are such difficult times and they need all the help they can get in making [career] decisions.”
Fee-paying schools such as Presentation Brothers College in Cork, which has moved up to second place on the table, and Alexandra College in Dublin, which has maintained its rank of sixth for two years in a row, both pay for careers guidance counsellors from their fees.
Deis schools, which receive extra grants from the Department of Education, also retain careers guidance counsellors. One such school, Scoil Chuimsitheach Chiarain in Carraroe, Co Galway, has entered the Parent Power table at 168. The Gaeltacht school has sent an average of 50.9% of its students to university over the past three years.
Sean Mac Donncha, the principal, maintains that retaining the counsellor has been an essential element in supporting pupils’ progression to third level.
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“There are a huge breadth of options; it’s a minefield and very difficult for students to grasp in the middle of a stressful exam year,” said Mac Donncha. “They need expert support. It’s about making the correct choice, the choice that best fits the student.
“The third-level choices are constantly changing, so it’s essential to have someone dedicated to that.
“We’re lucky that we’ve retained that service and are able to use it to the students’ advantage.”
Parent Power, which ranks the top 400 schools in the country according to progression to university and university-level institutions, also shows that schools in Munster, where the top three schools are located — Laurel Hill Colaiste FCJ, Presentation Brothers College, and Scoil Mhuire at Sidney Place in Cork — are outperforming their counterparts in Leinster.
There are 2.5m people living in Dublin and Leinster, compared with 1.2m in Cork and Munster. According to Central Statistics Office figures from 2013, annual Dublin household incomes average €41,508, while those in the southwest average €31,166. Despite this, Munster has 39 schools in the top 100, compared with Leinster’s 43.
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Girls’ schools are also disproportionately successful: six of the top 10 schools are girls’ schools. While the top 20 boys’ schools are all in the top 100 overall, the top 20 girls’ schools are in the national top 50.
Gaelcholaisti — the Irish language schools located outside the Gaeltacht — and fee-paying schools are also performing well.
There are just 42 gaelcholaisti in the republic — including seven schools which have opened since 2011, and nine schools with Irish-medium units or subjects within an overall English-medium setting — yet 29 of them are in the top 400. That means that while they represent just 5% of the 722 second-level schools in the country, they comprise 7% of the top 400, 18% of the top 50 and 30% of the top 10.
There are 51 fee-paying second-level schools, yet they make up almost half the top 50 and there are 38 in the top 100. Since 2009, following a series of budget cuts — which have reduced the staff-student ratio of fee-paying schools to 1:23, compared with 1:19 for the free school system — five fee-paying schools have joined the free system.