The whole boarding school package is changing as the expectations of parents and pupils rise. Don't think chilly dormitories, think golf courses and ensuite bedrooms. Louise Holden reports

Irish boarding schools are under pressure as students, spoilt for choice, spurn the traditional menu of bleak dormitories and soggy school dinners.

The number of boarding schools in the State has been declining for several years. But, despite this trend, those who offer the best facilites - as well as the prestige associated with some schools - are thriving. In the "New Ireland", some of the top boarding schools feature the kind of facilites one might associate with plush hotels. Some even have their own on-site golf courses. The bad news for parents is that prices may have to rise sharply to keep pace with ever increasing costs.

Irish boarding schools are popular with wealthy families from all over the world. They offer an education through English, with fees that are roughly half those demanded by boarding schools in Britain (the average cost of a year's boarding in a British school is £16,000). They are also admired for their unique educational ethos.

But as Principal Pat O'Sullivan of Rockwell College, Co Tipperary, points out, prices are likely to rise as the sector grows more competitive, and the unique "Irishness" of the system will be undermined if the boarding population does not retain a significant proportion of Irish students.

"In the future, more Irish boarding schools will depend on the foreign market to stay open. Every week I am invited to another part of the world to recruit students for Rockwell. This year we limited the number of students that we took in from overseas - we didn't want to swamp the dorms with students of lots of nationalities separated from their parents.

"Foreign students coming to Ireland for secondary education tend to come from wealthy families and it's easy to accept the fast buck. We look for character references from our students in order to protect ourselves from the unknown and protect the tradition of the school."

There will always be a demand for boarding facilities from Irish families, but the pool of applicants is shrinking. Schools have to stay on top of the competition and without the availability of religious staff, they are moving steadily towards a private-sector mentality.

"A boarding school is like a hostel or a hotel - if you don't upgrade, your numbers will fall away," says principal Harry Meyers of the King's Hospital in Palmerstown, Dublin. "You have to make up your mind about what you are and that is not a charitable service. It's a buyer's market now and the old traditions don't apply."

Any boarding school that continues to attract students will need to keep investing heavily in facilities. An €8 million investment in boarding facilities at King's Hospital means the school now offers all rooms ensuite. In Rathdown girl's school in Glenageary, Co Dublin, principal Barbara Ennis attributes her growing waiting lists to the development of a new three-story block for boarders. Wesley College, Dublin, has recently done away with dorms and now offers twin rooms, which senior students are invited to decorate themselves. Sixth years at Clongowes Wood College in Co Meath have enjoyed their own rooms for quite a while; now, due to demand, fifth years are being offered the same privilege.

Luxury is not thin on the ground in the sector. According to a recent past pupil of one Dublin boarding school, sixth-years enjoyed a smoking room and snooker room, and the atmosphere was "rather like that of a gentleman's club". Rockwell College students have access to their very own 23-acre rowing lake and Clongowes Wood College boasts a nine-hole golf course on the school grounds.

In such a rarefied atmosphere, providing such an intense level of service, good staff are very hard to find and very expensive to pay. A number of Irish boarding schools, such as Castleknock School in Dublin, have decided to wind up their boarding services for lack of staff or, in the case of St Andrews in Booterstown, Co Dublin, outsource their services to agencies or private individuals offering accommodation locally.

Not many lay people are prepared to take on the role of deputy parent and with the number of nuns, priests and brothers falling steadily, the issue of staffing is likely to dog the boarding school sector indefinitely.

Children in boarding school are high maintenance - away from their parents and subject to homesickness they need to be carefully watched. Claire Misson is a psychologist specialising in troubled teens and she sees many children of separated parents sent to boarding school to remove them from unpleasant circumstances at home.

"The boarding school option will always be one for separated parents and it can work well where the child needs a more 'normal' environment to live and study in. If, however, the child feels that he or she has been sent away or rejected, being away from their parents can make them feel even more vulnerable."

As Marion Healy, principal of Alexandra College, Dublin, points out, the level of pastoral care in a boarding school has to be exceptionally high. "If one of our students is not sleeping well, it needs to be spotted and brought to my attention immediately. This demands high quality staffing."

All these pressures are likely to see boarding school fees in the State rise considerably over the coming years, but given the hours of input into students' well-being at most Irish boarding schools, many parents will stomach the price hikes. Also, many principals say that their boarders are far less likely to need grinds, as a result of the amount of supervised study available to them.

The issue of security for children looms large in the Irish psyche and parents want their children off the streets. There's also a desire to hand the issue of discipline over to the experts. "Parents are happy to have their children away from the attractions of the modern age," says Pat O'Sullivan of Rockwell College. "We all face a challenge when it comes to keeping drugs and alcohol out of our schools, but I have to say it's never been a problem here."

Harry Meyer of King's Hospital goes one step further; "Life here is like a Protestant version of monastic life."