asked the Minister for Education if he will encourage the establishment of community colleges in the Dublin area; and the number of such colleges he is planning as a percentage of new post-primary schools envisaged for the Dublin area in the next five years.
Written Answers. - Dublin Community Schools.
7.
Community schools are schools established in accordance with the provisions of a deed of trust for community schools. There is no official category of school known as a community college. The name is given by some vocational education committees to some schools established in accordance with the provisions of the Vocational Education Acts.
In general, a community school is provided in circumstances where one school is being established in an area and both the religious authorities concerned and the vocational education committee desire to be involved in its administration and are prepared to implement the provisions of the deed of trust. The features of each particular case, with special regard to the ascertainable views of the parents of the children involved, are taken into account when a decision has to be made between conflicting views as to whether the school to be established should be a community school or a school to be administered by the vocational education committee.
No decision has been taken that a fixed percentage of the new schools to be established in the Dublin area in the next five years should be schools to be administered by vocational education committees but it is anticipated that such schools will represent a reasonable percentage of the total.