State schools in south Dublin are feeling the squeeze as middle-class parents prefer to pay the price for a private education in a fee-paying school, writes Emmet Oliver Education Correspondent

The manicured lawns. The school blazers. The rugby shirts. The Latin inscriptions on the school crest. All are trademarks of the traditional Dublin fee-paying school. Walk though any south Dublin suburb nowadays and you can see these trademarks up close. Fee-paying schools have never been more popular in the city. Of the 91 schools situated south of the Liffey, more than one-third are fee paying.

If you stop your car at virtually any point along the Stillorgan dual carriageway and toss a stone in the air, it would probably land in the grounds of a fee-paying school.

Whereas once these schools were the preserve of so-called "castle Catholics", nowadays the burgeoning middle-class from Ballsbridge to Bray regard going to the local fee-paying school as an essential rite-of-passage.

While the traditional left still likes to portray these schools as breeding grounds for elitism, the average middle-class family in south Dublin is not too bothered about being politically correct and is more concerned about keeping up with the Joneses. The best way of keeping up, or passing out, the Joneses is to send your son or daughter to a fee-paying school. At least that would appear to be the conventional wisdom.

Figures released by The Irish Times a fortnight ago seemed to support this point; the numbers of pupils returned to UCD or Trinity by the leading fee-paying schools was considerably higher than non-fee paying schools. Schools which are synonymous with the fee-paying tradition such as Blackrock and Wesley College dominated the top 10 tables published on these pages and subsequently elsewhere.

Of course there were community schools such as Coolmine and Portmarnock up there battling with the fee-payers, but for good or ill, the figures told at least part of the story: fee-paying schools tend to have a strong record in getting students a place at third level - at least, many parents think so.

For some this is a heresy. They suggest the only reason fee-paying schools are so successful at getting students into third level is because they select their pupils, often based on strict entrance exams, whereas community or vocational schools, by their very nature, are forced to accept all-comers.

This is true to some extent, but not all fee-paying schools select their students solely based on academic ability. Others admit students based on other criteria, for example if a parent is a past pupil of the school, or if the child applying already has an older sibling at the school or simply if the parent has enough income to pay for the place.

Critics of fee-paying schools also make another obvious, but crucial, point: the fees charged by these schools are inevitably going to help pupils perform better in the long term.

"The fees allow them to improve the whole school, the labs, the gym, the staffroom. This creates a better atmosphere in the school and in turn leads to happier pupils and teachers. The money helps to lift the school above the level reached by non-fee paying schools. The fees represent the crucial difference," says one teacher working at a non-fee paying school.

For the past two decades, but particularly in the 1990s, parents up and down the Stillorgan dual carriagewayhave voted with their feet and with their wallets. Enrolments at virtually every Southside fee-paying school have been rising since the early 1990s. Parents have been prepared to shell out €7,000 and €8,000 year to tap into the near legendary old boy network which is supposed to grow out of every fee-paying school.

The popularity of fee-paying schools has now reached such an unprecedented level, that large tracts of south Dublin are in danger of providing virtually no other form of education. Go to Southside suburbs such as Blackrock, Stillorgan and Ballsbridge and count the number of schools not charging fees. It will not take you long and you will not need many fingers.

The schools which are not charging fees in these suburbs, such as Oatlands College, Clonkeen College, Marian College and Sion Hill, might want to re-consider that policy if their role books are anything to go by. While they are regarded as particularly fine schools, they have to fight extra hard to win over parents.

Marian College's enrolments fell from 456 to 361 between 1995 and 2001, the numbers at Sion Hill are down from 622 a decade ago to about 350 today. Over at Oatlands College, which sits perched over the Stillorgan dual carriageway, the numbers are also down, from 566 five years ago to 386 in 2000/2001. Enrolments at Clonkeen College, a non fee-payer near Dean's Grange have also been falling.

Several factors obviously lie behind these figures.

The general decline in the second-level student population explains the sharp falls to some degree. Also the presence of the DART in large parts of southside Dublin means students are very mobile and their families can pick and choose schools more than they could decades ago. But factors such as mobility and demographics do not on their own explain the trends. If they did, the enrolment figures for all schools in south Dublin would have taken a dive. They have not, so there must be other reasons.

Social change and parental power are probably the most powerful forces at work. The boom of the 1990s in particular fuelled the massive growth in fee-paying schools in south Dublin.

"The average father or mother, who for years could not even comprehend sending their kid to a fee-paying school, suddenly found in the 90s they could afford it. And they didn't think twice," explains one principal.

The abolition of third-level fees in 1994 was also significant. "Middle class parents who had a bit of disposable income, usually spent it on third level fees, but when they were abolished in the mid-1990s they were suddenly able to use that money to pay for second level education instead," explains another principal.

This has meant a serious move away from non-fee paying schools in the area. Michael Madigan, principal of Oatlands College, accepts that non fee-payers have been "feeling the squeeze", but he says not every parent supports the fee-paying model.

Primary schools which provide students for second-level schools such as Oatlands are showing increasing enrolments and this will eventually feed into the second-level system, he says. "I think we have turned the corner." Other principals are not so sanguine, but because they do not want their school in the spotlight, they are reluctant to publicly discuss the issues.

However one principal says the situation for non fee-paying schools from Ballsbridge to Bray does not look good. "We have to go to every primary school in the area promoting ourselves in order to get the students. But the fee-paying schools often do not even bother to turn up, knowing they will get the applicants anyway," one principal ruefully reflects.

George O'Callaghan, who as head of the Joint Managerial Body, represents several fee-paying schools, does not see them closing however.

"I think south Dublin is unique in that there are over 30 fee-paying schools in a relatively small area. The competition is fierce, there is no doubt about that. But there will always be a demand for non fee-paying options too," he says.

Ironically the seemingly inexorable rise of the fee-paying school might come to an end because of developments elsewhere in the education system.

Minister Dempsey's plans to re-introduce fees at third level would put a serious squeeze on the budgets of many middle-class families and would probably prompt many of them to think again about paying exorbitant school fees just so their son or daughter gets to wear the old school tie.