Drumragh Integrated College is presently too small. The college has requested permission to expand for some years now, and the current Development Proposal is our third attempt. We refuse to give up because this is important. The college has had to turn children away for nearly a decade, and the blunt reality is that if a child is refused admission to Drumragh, they are probably also being denied an integrated education. Integrated education is an important part of the pathway to peace, and it creates a better future not only for our young people, but for Northern Ireland as a whole.
It may be suggested that a Development Proposal such as this is an attempt to ‘poach’ students from other schools. This is not the case, however. The facts are simple:
- The school is too small.
- Parental choice is not therefore being fulfilled – surely every parent should be able to choose a school for their child.
- This is about giving a place at Drumragh to those who would like one.
For a number of years the College has witnessed the disappointment and frustration of prospective parents and students who were being told they could not study here. A key challenge for us has been to support those who have told us they were despairing of gaining admission and were considering ‘giving up’. This could be called the ‘despair factor’, and it is simply unfair.
It may be mentioned in the coming weeks that in fact Drumragh was not over-subscribed this year. That’s true. It is a blip in our enrolment pattern, nothing more. The overall trend speaks for itself and so the need to expand remains.
There is a legal aspect to this, and for good reason. Article 64 of the 1989 Order concerns the statutory duty of the Department of Education ‘to encourage and facilitate the development of integrated education’. Drumragh Integrated College is the only integrated post-primary school in the Omagh district, meaning that many prospective pupils refused a place here are denied an integrated education. The barriers of the past must be torn down, and so society can heal. Integrated education has a vital role to play in this process of growing peace. Drumragh students are in a school which celebrates diversity, which encourages learning from each other’s differences and which has been externally validated by the ETI as delivering results above its equivalent school type. We are proud of the above qualities and believe strongly in the potential benefits of providing them to additional numbers of students, as a result of this Development Proposal.
Drumragh Integrated College is content firstly that there is a clear, evident need for a significant increase in its enrolment, and secondly that the College has the capacity to manage that increase very effectively. Since the College’s catchment area is wide, it is argued that the proposed expansion is unlikely to have a significant impact on any local schools; the additional students are likely to be drawn from a variety of schools. It is important to emphasis again that the aim of the Development Proposal is to admit those who wish to attend Drumragh Integrated College, not to draw away those who wish to attend other schools in the area, but based on trends the College is too small to be able to do so.
Nigel Frith
Principal
Drumragh Integrated College
028 8225 2440
