In a historic move, one of the State's most prestigious feepaying schools, Gonzaga, is to waive fees for students from poorer backgrounds.
In a related development, the two other fee-paying Jesuit schools in the State - Belvedere College and Clongowes Wood - are also expanding their scholarship schemes. A draft policy agreed by the Gonzaga schools board last week says that "inability to pay should no longer be an obstacle" to enrolment at Gonzaga.
Situated at Sandford Road, Ranelagh, the school fees are €4,155 a year. Last night, its headmaster, Patrick Potts, said that more than 30 schools which act as feeders for Gonzaga will be informed of the change in policy shortly. "We will," he said, "be actively encouraging applications from pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds under the new scholarship scheme."
The move follows an initiative taken by the provincial of the Jesuit Community in Ireland, Father John Dardis .
In the past year, fee-paying schools have attracted considerable negative publicity. Department of Education figures indicated a low level of provision for students with special needs in some fee-paying schools. Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin and the teacher unions have also expressed unease about the practice of some schools in "cherry-picking" the brightest students.
Last September, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, expressed concern that the religious presence in privately-run secondary schools could become predominantly associated with educating an elite.
Gonzaga was established in 1950 by the former archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Charles McQuaid. The change of policy comes as other fee-paying schools run by the Jesuit order move to expand their scholarship programmes.
Belvedere College, on Dublin's north side, has greatly expanded its special needs provision in the past year. Its headmaster, Gerry Foley, says that over 12 per cent of its 900 pupils are now on scholarships. At Clongowes Wood College in Co Kildare, the headmaster, Father Leonard Maloney, has announced plans for a new scholarship programme which will see 10 per cent of students on scholarship within six years.
With a school population of 520, Gonzaga enrols about 90 pupils each year. About half of this number are reserved for siblings and those with a relationship with the school or the Jesuit order. Only about 35 places are available, but these are highly prized. At present, only one in four of those applying for these places is successful in a random selection process supervised by an independent observer.
