For immediate release, 16 February 2010
Educate Together welcomes the Department of Education and Science’s sanctioning of a new Educate Together school for Portlaoise this September. The school is one of seven that will be opened in 2010, two of which will be managed by Educate Together.
The selection of Portlaoise is recognition of the ever-growing demand for multidenominational education in Ireland and will be the first Educate Together school in the area. Commenting on the opening Educate Together Regional Development Officer Amy Mulvihill said ‘This decision is very welcome as Portlaoise has had such population growth in recent years, the need for a new school was urgent. With the establishment of an Educate Together school, local parents can now exercise real choice in the type of primary education their children receive’.
The new Portlaoise Educate Together School has been established in response to strong local demand from local parents over a number of years. Following local consultation Educate Together decided there was sufficient need for a multidenominational school in Portlaoise and submitted an initial application in 2008. This process has come to fruition with the Department’s decision and now we await the Department’s recommendation regarding accommodation for the new school. Educate Together established schools in Tullamore in 2004 and Carlow in 2008.
Educate Together is a recognised patron body and the fastest growing provider of primary school education in Ireland today. It operates schools based on the delivery of ‘equality of access and esteem to children irrespective of their social, cultural or religious backgrounds’. Set up in the 1970s by volunteers and educationalists, it now operates 56 schools throughout the country and has applied to open 45 primary and its first secondary schools in the next few years. It is an independent educational charity that is supported by small government grants and extensive private fundraising. See www.educatetogether.ie for further information.
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For further information please contact
John Holohan
Educate Together Communications Manager
087 2035750
