By Sarah Mac Donald - 07 December, 2014
Terenure College
One of the oldest schools in the country has announced it is closing its junior school due to falling enrolments.
Terenure College, which was founded by the Carmelites in 1860, will shut the doors of its school in 2018.
In a recent communication to parents of pupils current attending the school, Fr Michael Troy OCarm, who is school principal in Terenure, disclosed that since 2009, the junior school’s numbers had dropped by nearly 50%.
He stated that “a small school with this decreased number cannot survive either educationally or economically”.
The Department of Education provides no financial support to private junior schools which must cover all costs and salaries from fees and increasingly from fundraising.
The last students will finish sixth class in May 2018.
Terenure College was founded as a boarding school in 1860 and is the oldest educational establishment in the Carmelite Order.
In 1972, it switched from being a boarding school and is now solely a day school though it is also a centre for the Open University which holds classes in the evenings and at weekends.
